154 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
to the “ Carnival of Venice.” The Red Thrush 
does not, however, consent to any parrot-like 
mimicry, though every note of wood or field — 
Oriole, Bobolink, Crow, Jay, Robin, Whip-poor- 
will—appears to pass in veiled procession 
through the song. 
Retain the execution of the Red Thrush 
but hopelessly impair his organ, and you have 
the Catbird. This accustomed visitor would 
seem a gifted vocalist but for the inevitable 
comparison between his thinner note and the 
gushing melodies of the lordlier bird. Is it 
some hopeless consciousness of this disadvan- 
tage which leads him to pursue that peculiar 
habit of singing softly to himself very often in 
a fancied seclusion? When other birds are 
cheerily out of doors, on some bright morning 
in May or June, one will often discover a solitary 
Catbird sitting concealed in the middle of a 
dense bush, and twittering busily, in subdued 
rehearsal, the whole copious variety of his lay, 
practising trills and preparing half imitations, 
which at some other time, sitting on the top- 
most twig, he shall hilariously seem to im- 
provise before all the world. Can it be that he 
is really in some slight disgrace with nature, 
with that demi-mourning garb of his, and that 
his feline cry of terror, which makes his op- 
probrium with boys, is but a part of some hid- 
