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In transcribing them, I have inserted one or two apostrophes, for the poet always complained that though he could spell like sixty, he never could mind his stops. The cat-bird poorty nigh splits his throat, Ef nobody's thar to see. The cat-bird poorty nigh splits his throat, But ef I say, "Sing out, green coat," Why, "I can't" and "I shan't," says he.
The cat-bird called in the syringa thicket at his door, before we said the good-night which was good morning, using the sweet Italian words, and bidding each other the 'Dorma bene' which has the quality of a benediction. He held my hand, and looked into my eyes with the sunny kindness which never failed me, worthy or unworthy; and I went away to bed.
Mew!" too, just like kitties. Oh, I tell you cat-birds are queer things! and how they do love cherries when they are ripe! Eh? "That is very good crying, birdies," said Uncle Wiggily, "and I think I'll give you something to eat, to pay for it." So he took out from his valise some peanuts, that Percival, the circus dog, had given him, and Uncle Wiggily fed them to the cat-bird and her kittie-birds.
With a sailor's quiet, sliding feet, Jimmy walked into the low hall, and a cat-bird, in a cage there, immediately started such a shrill series of cries that his steps were unheard by himself. "Nobody bein' yer," thought Jimmy, "an' the flies gittin 'at the victuals, I reckon I'll do as I would be done by."
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.
Anatomy and dress and even voice aside, who does not feel the dissimilarity between the cat-bird and the robin, and still more the difference, amounting to contrast, between the cat-bird and the bluebird?
To what extent the cat-bird is a nest-robber I have no evidence, but that feline mew of hers, and that flirting, flexible tail, suggest something not entirely bird-like. Probably the darkest tragedy of the nest is enacted when a snake plunders it. All birds and animals, so far I have observed, behave in a peculiar manner toward a snake.
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.
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.
What a comfortably simple affair the matrimonial question is with the feminine cat-bird! Her wooers are all of equally good family and all equally rich. There is literally nothing for her to do but to look into her own heart and choose. No temptation has she to sell herself for the sake of a fashionable name or a fine house, or in order to gratify the prejudice of father or mother.
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