50 THE Birps Asout Us. 
individuality among birds necessarily results in two 
things: degrees of energy and degrees of skill. Birds 
are no more mere machines cast in the same mould 
than are men, and hence arises the insuperable diffi- 
culty of giving an account of a bird’s habits that 
every observer will find tallies with his experiences 
and impressions. A description so general as to do 
this will not be of any value to those who really wish 
to know something of the bird-life about them. 
Everybody is supposed to know the Cat-bird, and 
it deserves to be known. For some unaccountable 
reason there is a wide-spread prejudice existing, but 
the birds are worth their weight in gold to every 
farmer ; are excellent singers, and have such delight- 
Cat-bird. 
ful, pert ways, that no one, not a positive brute, can 
deliberately do them harm. Their habit of mewing like 
a cat should prejudice no one against them, for they 
are not cats nor cat-like, but jolly song-birds who eat 
enormous quantities of noxious insects and pay ten 
times over for all the fruit they take. I have heard 
