Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/877

1858.] I derive from a summer-evening walk. If in any year I fail to hear the song of the Veery, I feel a painful sense of regret, as when I have missed an opportunity to see an absent friend, during a periodical visit.

The Veery is not one of our latest singers. His notes are not often heard after the middle of July.

We should not be obliged to penetrate the wood to learn the habits of another Thrush, not so remarkable for his musical powers as interesting on account of his manners. I allude to the Cat-Bird, (Turdus felivox,) well known from his disagreeable habit of mewing like a kitten. He is most frequently seen on the edge of a wood, among the bushes that have come up, as it were, to hide its baldness and to harmonize it with the plain. He is usually attached to low, moist, and retired situations, though he is often very familiar in his habits. His nest of dry sticks is sometimes woven into a currant-bush in a garden that adjoins a wood, and his quaint voice may be heard there as in his own solitary haunts. The Cat-Bird is not an inveterate singer, and never seems to make music his employment, though at any hour of the day, from dawn until dusk in the evening, he may be heard occasionally singing and complaining.

Though I have been all my life familiar with the notes and manners of the Cat-Bird, I have not yet been able to discover that he is a mocker. He seems to me to have a definite song, unlike that of any other bird, except the Red Mavis,—not made up of parts of the songs of other birds, but as unique and original as that of the Song-Sparrow or the Robin. In the songs of all birds we may detect occasional strains that resemble parts of the song of some other species; but the Cat-Bird gives no more of these imitations than we might reasonably regard as accidental. The modulation of his song is somewhat similar to that of the Red Thrush, and it is sometimes difficult to determine, at first, when the bird is out of sight, whether we are listening to the one or the other; but after a few seconds, we detect one of those quaint turns that distinguish the notes of the Cat-Bird. I never yet mistook the note of the Cat-Bird for that of any species except the Red Thrush. The truth is, that the Thrushes, though delightful songsters, possess inferior powers of execution, and cannot equal the Finches in their capacity of learning and performing the notes of other birds. Even the Mocking-Bird, as compared with many other species, is a very imperfect imitator of any notes which are difficult of execution.

The mewing note of the Cat-Bird, from which his name is derived, has been the occasion of many misfortunes to his species, causing them to share a portion of that contempt which almost every human being feels towards the feline race, and that contempt has been followed by persecution. The Cat-Bird has always been proscribed by the New England farmers, who from the first settlement of the country have entertained a prejudice against many of the most useful birds. The Robin and a few diminutive Fly-Catchers are almost the only exceptions. But the Robin is now in danger of proscription. Within a few years past, the horticulturists, who are unwilling lo lose their cherries for the general benefit of agriculture, have made an effort to obtain an edict of outlawry against him, accusing him of being entirely useless to the farmer and the gardener. Their efforts have caused the friends of the Robin to examine his claims to protection, and the result of their investigations is demonstrative proof that the Robin is among the most useful birds in existence. The Cat-Bird and other Thrushes are similar in their habits of feeding and in their services to agriculture.

The Red Mavis (Turdus rufus) has many habits similar to those of the Cat-Bird, but he is not partial to low grounds. He is one of the most remarkable of the American birds, and is generally considered the finest songster in the New England forest. Nuttall says, "He is inferior only to the Mocking-Bird in musical tal-