Birds of Indiana. 



1109 



good account of its doings. He can tell of his own prejudice against 

 it, whieli is but aji expression of a general antipathy to this familiar 

 ■bird. Why this is so, I am sure I cannot tell, for the Catbird is 

 deserving of respect and good treatment. 



They frequent swamps, thickets, bushy ravines and similar places 

 in the less settled localities, but are most abundant where the country 

 is more thickly populated, frequenting gardens, orchards, briers, vine- 

 yards, lawns, and even coming intO' our towns. 



The Catbird is not a poor singer. Many are the utterances he 

 makes, ranging from his mewing call among the hedges to his ecstatic- 

 love song from the top of a neighboring tree. 



Cat Bird. 

 (Judd.— Year Book, United States Department of Agriculture, 1895, p. 407.) 



Its notes have attracted many a singer and made of him an admirer. 

 My good friend, Prof. W. H. Venable, of Cincinnati, 0., has been an 

 appreciative auditor and has fitly pictured him in verse, a most diffi- 

 cult task, which he has satisfactorily accomplished. 



When the first ones arrive after the winter is past, they frequent 

 the thickets, hedges and small fruit bushes, and are songless. They 

 appear some years in southern Indiana before the end of March, but 

 generally it is well into April before they are seen, and- near the end 

 of that month before they reach the Michigan boundary. The year 

 of 1896 some of them arrived in the southern part of the State at 

 an unprecedentedly early date. But the migration of the greater num- 

 ber was stayed until near the usual time. That year they appeared 



