26 WAKE-ROBIN 
reverberating notes rising from a dozen different 
throats. 
It is one of the simplest strains to be heard, —as 
simple as the curve in form, delighting from the 
pure element of harmony and beauty it contains, 
and not from any novel or fantastic modulation of 
it, — thus contrasting strongly with such rollicking, 
hilarious songsters as the bobolink, in whom we are 
chiefly pleased with the tintinnabulation, the verbal 
and labial excellence, and the evident conceit and 
delight of the performer. 
I hardly know whether I am more pleased or 
annoyed with the catbird. Perhaps she is a little 
too common, and her part in the general chorus a 
little too conspicuous. If you are listening for the 
note of another bird, she is sure to be prompted to 
the most loud and protracted singing, drowning all 
other sounds; if you sit quietly down to observe a 
favorite or study a new-comer, her curiosity knows 
no bounds, and you are scanned and ridiculed from 
every point of observation. Yet I would not miss 
her; I would only subordinate her a little, make 
her less conspicuous. 
She is the parodist of the woods, and there is 
ever a mischievous, bantering, half-ironical under- 
tone in her lay, as if she were conscious of mimick- 
ing and disconcerting some envied songster. Ambi- 
tious of song, practicing and rehearsing in private, 
she yet seems the least sincere and genuine of the 
sylvan minstrels, as if she had taken up music only 
to be in the fashion, or not to be outdone by the 
