Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/208

172 choice, than its song is heard from the topmost branches of the trees around, in the dawn of the morning. This song is a compound of many of the gentler trills and sweeter modulations of our various woodland choristers, delivered with apparent caution, and with all the attention and softness necessary to enable the performer to please the ear of his mate. Each cadence passes on without faltering; and if you are acquainted with the song of the birds he so sweetly imitates, you are sure to recog- nise the manner of the different species. When the warmth of his loving bosom engages him to make choice of the notes of our best songsters, he brings forth sounds as mellow and as powerful as those of the Thrasher and Mocking Bird. These medleys, when heard in the calm and balmy hours of retiring day, always seem to possess a double power, and he must have a dull ear indeed, and little rehsh for the simple melodies of nature, who can listen to them without delight.

The manners of this species are lively, and at intervals border on the grotesque. It is extremely sensitive, and will follow an intruder to a considerable distance, wailing and mewing as it passes from one tree to another, its tail now jerked and thrown from side to side, its wings drooping, and its breast deeply inchned. On such occasions, it would fain peck at your hand ; but these exhibitions of irritated feeling seldom take place after the young are sufficiently grown to be able to take care of themselves. In some instances, I have known this bird to recognise at once its friend from its foe, and to suffer the former even to handle the treasure deposited in its nest, with all the marked assurance of the know- ledge it possessed of its safety; when, on the contrary, the latter had to bear all its anger. The sight of a dog seldom irritates it, while a single glance at the wily cat excites the most painful paroxysms of alarm. It never neglects to attack a snake with fury, although it often happens that it becomes the sufferer for its temerity.

The vulgar name which this species bears, has probably rendered it more conspicuous than it would otherwise be, and has also served to bring it into some degree of contempt with persons not the best judges of the benefits it confers on the husbandman in early spring, when, with industrious care, it cleanses his fruit-trees of thousands of larvae and insects, which, in a single day, would destroy, while yet in the bud, far more of his fruit than the Cat Bird would eat in a whole season. But alas, selfishness, the usual attendant of ignorance, not only heaps maledictions on the harmless bird, but dooms it to destruction. The naughty boys pelt the