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There are many disagreeable things to be met with in life, but none that is much harder upon the nerves than a mannish woman. With a strident voice and a swaggering walk, and a clattering tongue, she takes her course through the world like a cat-bird through an orchard; the thrushes and the robins are driven right and left before the advance of the noisy nuisance.
One dear little fellow sang two or three strains before he succeeded in waking any body; then a robin joined in, in a sleepy kind of way; then two or three wrens, and then a cat-bird; and, last of all, my little weather-bird, which, from the topmost branches of the elm-tree, warbled out to me that it was a pleasant day. Oh, what a sweet concert they all gave me before the sun rose!"
They appear, indeed, to prefer the noonday, because the general silence that prevails at this hour renders their voices more distinguishable than at other times. The birds which are thus, as it were, associated with the Wren, in this noonday concert, are the Bobolink, the Cat-bird, and the two Warbling Fly-catchers, occasionally joined by the few and simple notes of the Summer Yellow-bird.
The oriole will soon be heard here, and the twanging meoeow of the cat-bird; also the king-bird, cuckoo and the warblers. Insects are out plentifully at midday. April 29. As we drove lingering along the road we heard, just after sundown, the song of the wood-thrush. We stopp'd without a word, and listen'd long.
She learned, too, to recognise the pert sharp cry of the tiny chick-a-dee, the call of the blue-bird, and the flash of its wings amid the foliage, the sweet chirpy note of the black and white bobolink, and the long-drawn mewing of the cat-bird.
In the nook were silence and delicious odors of the woods; from a thick shrub on one side came the sweet erratic song of a cat-bird, and at a little distance the rich organ-tones of the wood-thrush. All these entered the soul of the emancipated bird; he listened, he looked, and at last he spoke, a low, soft, "wee-o."
MacGillivray, the Scottish naturalist, reports that Audubon himself, in conversation, arranged our vocalists in the following order: first, the Mocking-Bird, as unrivalled; then, the Wood-Thrush, Cat-Bird, and Red Thrush; the Rose-Breasted, Pine, and Blue Grosbeak; the Orchard and Golden Oriole; the Tawny and Hermit Thrushes; several Finches, Bachmann's, the White-Crowned, the Indigo, and the Nonpareil; and finally, the Bobolink.
But the favorite was a gray cat-bird that sang from the bass-wood tree at the back of the vegetable garden. They liked him best, because he was so naughty and badly behaved, always sneaking round the backyard, and never coming out where there was an audience, as The Rowdy did. And then he could beat everybody, and at his own song, too!
A few song sparrows, a cat-bird or two, a chewink or two, a field sparrow, and perhaps a Maryland yellow-throat might be seen above the last houses, but as a general thing the bushes and trees were deserted. Walking here, I could for the time almost forget that I had ever owned a hobby-horse.
I could hear the murmur of the river, and the cry of the cat-bird in the bushes, but we seemed to be in a strange and unreal world. Suddenly she stretched out her hands to me, and with a little moan said, "Take me to him." "Sit down for a moment or two," I entreated. "No, no! I am quite ready. See," she added quietly, "I am quite strong."
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