834 
INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS. 
answered to my whistle in the garden, was very silent 
during the period of incubation, and expressed great anxi- 
ety and complaint on my approaching the young after their 
leaving the nest. According to Latham, the Cat-bird is 
also capable of imitating the variable airs of instrumental 
music, and will sometimes mimic the cry of chickens so 
as to deceive and distress the hen that attends them. 
One of the most remarkable propensities of the Cat- 
bird, and to which it owes its name, is the unpleasant, 
loud, and grating cat-like meiv ’pay, ’jP^y), which it 
often utters, on being approached or offended. As the 
irritation increases, this note becomes more hoarse, reit- 
erated, and vehement ; and sometimes this petulance 
and anger are carried so far, as to persecute every intru- 
der who approaches the premises. This temper often pre- 
vails after the young are fledged, and though originating, 
no doubt, in parental anxiety, it sometimes appears to 
outlive that season, and occasionally becomes such an 
annoyance, that a revengeful and fatal blow from a 
stick or stone, is but too often, with the thoughtless and 
prejudiced, the reward of this harmless and capricious 
provocation. At such times, with little apparent cause, 
the agitation of the bird is excessive, she hurries backward 
and forward, with hanging wings, and open mouth, mew- 
ing and screaming in a paroxysm of scolding anger, and 
alighting almost to peck the very hand that offers the 
insult. To touch a twig or branch in any part of the gar- 
den or wood is often amply sufficient to call down the 
amusing termagant. This harmless excess, and simula- 
tion of grimalkin’s tone, that wizard animal, so much 
disliked by many, are unfortunate associations in the cry 
of the Cat - bird ; and thus coupled with an ill name, this 
delightful and familiar songster, who seeks out the very 
society of man, and reposes an unmerited confidence in 
