54 CATBIRD. 
the bushy forest margins, in swampy places overgrown with thickets, in blackberry- 
patches, in the ornamental shrubs of the gardens and parks, in short, we may look for 
it in all bushy places near water. In forests wanting in undergrowth, on dry hills, and 
far from water it is never found. Bushes and thickets are always its haunts and breed- 
ing places, and the denser and more tangled they are, the more they are preferred. In 
northern Illinois I found it most common in the woods traversed by a river or creek, 
where it inhabited as a rule not so much the marginal thickets as the shady inter- 
twined undergrowth of the interior, where Wood Thrushes, Vireos, Chats, Rose-breasted 
Grosbeaks, Towhees, and Brown Thrashers were its near neighbors. These shady 
thickets are usually composed of high cranberry, arrow-wood, black-haw, elder, sweet- 
scented crab-trees, hazel, white-thorn, cock-spur thorn, dogwood, and are overgrown 
with wild grape vines. In such copses the Catbird is usually very abundant. Near man 
it has a predilection for small dense conifers, likewise for dense ornamental shrubs, such 
as the different kinds of upright honeysuckles!, mock orange, sweet-scented shrub’, Mis. 
souri currants, twining honeysuckles, snowberry bushes, and others. In the prairie 
region of southwestern Missouri, where the drooping branches of the apple-trees are 
very dense and thickly covered with foliage, the bird occurs regularly in orchards. There 
it inhabits such places in company with Mockingbirds, Robins, and Thrashers. It also 
loves to settle in the osage-orange hedges with which the farmers surround their fields. 
Its trustfulness in man is so great that it will often build its nest close to a house or 
near a very frequented garden-path. It is almost certain to nest in thick bushes in a 
corner of the garden, in a shrub covered with vines, in a twining honeysuckle or in a 
group of small spruces. In the coast region of New England and the Eastern States 
where large masses of rhododendrons’, kalmias‘, azaleas*®, and other similar shrubs are 
planted, from the midst of which rise in summer noble golden-banded® and meadow- 
lilies’? in wonderful profusion, where the peaty soil is carpeted with a host of the most 
delicate small perennials, our- humble tenant finds the fittest haunts and nesting places. 
The evergreen rhododendrons and kalmias are so closely covered with large leaves, the 
branches grow so tangled when the shrubs are planted near together, that the Catbird 
can hardly select a better spot for building its nest. In the mountain regions of Penn. 
sylvania, Virginia, North and South Carolina, the Catbird is very abundant wherever 
the wild rhododendrons occur. ‘‘A conspicuous feature,’’ says Mr. Wm. Brewster in his 
admirable paper on the Birds of Western North Carolina, ‘of the plateau region at large 
is its extensive tracts of rhododendrons or ‘laurels’, These form the principal under- 
growth along streams, over damp hillsides, and throughout swampy or springy land, 
and, in many places, they grow in such tangled thickets, that it is impossible for a man 
to penetrate them without the aid of an, axe.”’* 
In this region also grows in dense 
thickets the mountain laurel, or Kalmia latifolia, with its beautiful rose-colored flower 
clusters, a recently discovered rhododendron (Rhododendron Vaseyi), and in many places 
in June the woods are resplendent with the gorgeous blossoms of the beautiful flame. 
colored azalea, or ‘swamp honeysuckle’’*. In a certain place (Jocassee Valley) the very 
1 Lonicera tartarica and L. xylosteum. 2 Calycanthus floridus. % Rhododendron maximum, R. Catawbiense and 
hybrids. 4 Kalmia latifolia, 6 Azalea pontica and hybrids, A. nudiflora, A. viscosa, 6 Lilium auratum. 7 L. superbum 
and L, canadense. 8 Rhododendron (Azalea) calendulacea. 
* See “Auk,’’ Vol, ILI, p. 98. 
