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In the timber fringes and the broad bottoms along the creek you get glimpses of the catbird feasting on the grapes and the wild plums; the brown thrasher and the woodthrush, wholly silent now; the little house wren who has lost her chatter; the vireos and the orioles, the wood pewee, the crested fly catcher and the kingbird. They all seem to be going southward.
There the squirrel scolds and chatters as he runs along the rail, And you hear the rain-crow calling, and the whistle of the quail; And the catbird, and the blue jay, scold with vigor most intense, As they build among the branches by the stake-and-rider fence.
On the whitewashed fence a catbird was calling over the meadow, and another answered from the little bricked-up graveyard, where the gate was opened only when a fresh grave was to be hollowed out amid the periwinkle.
A moment later they heard his voice, "Kow-kow-how-kow-kow-kow-kow-kow!" "I suppose some folks would think that it is going to rain," remarked Kitty the Catbird. "They have the silly notion that Cuckoo only calls just before rain, and so they call him the Rain Crow. But that isn't so at all. Well, Peter, I guess I've gossiped enough for one morning. I must go see how Mrs. Catbird is getting along."
"Next time I'll do better." Not knowing who gave the strange cry near their home, Bobby Bobolink and his wife held their breaths and waited. They never dreamed that it was their good friend, Mr. Catbird, hidden in a bush near-by, who was trying to imitate one of Bobby's songs. Meanwhile that fun-loving fellow smiled broadly to himself.
It would not be easy to exaggerate, for instance, the flashings and evolutions of the redstart when it arrives in May, or the acting and posing of the catbird, or the gesticulations of the yellow breasted chat, or the nervous and emphatic character of the large-billed water thrush, or the many pretty attitudes of the great Carolina wren; but to give the same dramatic character to the demure little song sparrow, or to the slow moving cuckoo, or to the pedestrian cowbird, or to the quiet Kentucky warbler, as Audubon has done, is to convey a wrong impression of these birds.
"An'," interrupted Ump, turning round under the Bay Eagle, "an' then Miss Cynthia looked up sharp at him like a catbird, an' she laughed, an' she said how that advice wasn't needed, because little boys always went home by the safest road." The taunt sank in as oil sinks into a cloth. I may have blushed and stammered, and I may have blubbered like a milksop, but it was not because I was afraid.
There are some, like the wood thrush, song-sparrow, oriole, robin, barn-swallow, catbird, and wren, without which June would not be June, but an imperfect harmony lacking the dominant note. Down close to the earth, yes, in the earth, the same obtains. Upon how few of all the species of annuals listed does the real success of the summer garden rest?
Knowing as they did that he was always ready to feed any nestlings that were left to fend for themselves, and that he was quick to help any of the small feathered folk to fight an enemy, his neighbors did not care how much Mr. Catbird mocked them. It was only his way of having fun; so they didn't mind. Mr. Catbird was always prankish and full of spirits.
The rancorous cry of the catbird, and the rattling call of the kingfisher, that feathered spirit of the stream, are left behind; the clear flutelike notes of the meadow lark take their place, and the hills, covered with wild flowers, roll back from its margin, as if to make room for its uninterrupted flow.