52 CATBIRD. 
SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Turdus polyglottos Linn. (1758). Turdus polyglottus Gmel. (1788), Lath., Wils., 
Aud., Nutt. MIMUS POLYGLOTTUS Boie, Isis, 1826, 972., Brd., Coues, Ridgw., ete. Orpheus 
polyglottus Sw. (1827). 
DESCRIPTION: Male above ashy-gray; below grayish-white; tail and wings blackish, the latter marked 
with large white spots on the primaries, and across the ends of the coverts; the outer tail-feathers 
entirely white, the next one or two tipped with white.—Female similar to the male, but the colors 
less clear. The male is distinguished from the female by the superior size, and greater extent and 
purity of the white markings on wings and tail. Bill and feet are black. Iris in young birds hazel- 
colored, in older birds yellow.— Young Mockingbirds are above brownish-gray, and below speckled 
with dusky. Length 9.50 to 11 inches.—Nest bulky, usually in bushes or trees. Eggs, four to five, 
pale bluish-green, heavily spotted with reddish brown. .97%.73 inch. 
CATBIRD. 
Galeoscoptes carolinensis CABANIS. 
Piuatre HI. 
Hail, thou capricious garden-loving bird, 
That pour’st abroad thy warbling melody, 
From the yet sunlit top of yonder tree, 
While gathering shades the boughs below have blurred — 
Thy vesper-song, by gratitude preferred! — 
Though thou full oft dost whine discordantly. 
Yet few, methinks, when homeward hies the bee, 
Of summer’s choir, more musical are heard. 
Laying aside that other note of thine, 
To tuneful eloquence thou turn’st thy voice 
Bidding all hearts that harassed are all day 
By worldly fret, a while to ccase to pine, 
Forget their cares, for Heaven's great gifts rejoice, 
And dewy evening greet with grateful lay. 
W. L. SHOEMAKER. 
xi HO does not love our beautiful native birds? Who does not grieve when they 
AN leave our gardens, fields, and forests in autumn with the bright days of Indian 
summer, and who does not welcome them back as dear friends when they return to us 
again from their winter quarters in the sunnier South? Who has not enjoyed the 
familiar song of our beautiful Bluebird or the first whistle of our Robin, when in early 
March they come once more to tell us that winter must go and spring is coming? 
Who has not learned to love the plainly colored little Mairbird, or “Chippy,” the modest 
and yet so attractive Snowbird and the admirable Song Sparrow, as they pick up the 
crumbs at our feet? Or who has failed to admire the bright-colored Baltimore Oriole, 
as it weaves its purse-shaped hanging nest high over-head in the boughs of a beautiful 
wide-spreading clm, so safe from snakes and prowling cats? What can be more 
delightful than our shady northern woods carpeted with fragrant trailing arbutus, 
checkerberry, wake-robins (Trillium), twin-flowers, partridge-herry, blood-root, terres- 
trial orchids, bellworts, ferns and club-mosses, and enlivened by a host of Warblers, 
