United States or Liberia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Do your work! Never shirk! Never hurry! Never worry! Wait a bit!" Before Robert Robin had finished singing his Wait-a-bit song Mister Catbird came rushing over from the edge of a tangled swamp, and perched himself near Robert Robin, in the top of the tall butternut tree.
She never raises her voice like the town-crier, as the robin does, perched in the mean time where all eyes may behold him. The catbird peers and utters her soft protest from her hiding-place in the bushes. This particular pair of catbirds appeared in early May and began slyly to look over the situation in the vines and bushes about the house.
After the catbird, silence, broken only by the soft, indescribable utterances that are at the same time the delight and the despair of the bird-student.
At the same time robins were flying here and there with loaded beaks, and wood thrushes were going through the air trailing long strips of white paper behind them, but the catbird was an emblem of secrecy itself. She, too, brought fragments of white paper to her nest, but no one saw her do it.
When it ended Peter had a question all ready. "Are you going to build somewhere near here?" he asked. "I certainly am," replied Kitty. "Mrs. Catbird was delayed a day or two. I hope she'll get here to-day and then we'll get busy at once. I think we shall build in these bushes here somewhere. I'm glad Farmer Brown has sense enough to let them grow.
Smaller birds alighted on the raised poles, and several a robin, a catbird and a little brown wren ventured with hesitating boldness to peck at the crumbs the girls threw to them. Deer waded knee-deep in the shallow water, and, lifting their heads, instantly became motionless and absorbed.
He was followed by a Catbird, who had been in a honeysuckle, by one of the farmhouse windows, and peeped inside out of curiosity. Both were excited and evidently bubbling over with news, which half the birds of the orchard were following them to hear. "I know all about it," cried the Swift, settling himself for a long talk. "I've seen the House People!" screamed the Catbird.
Some observers say the catbird eats the eggs of the fly-catcher and other birds, but this must be seen to be believed. There comes an outbreak of melody from the top of a tall black willow, much like the tones of the robin and yet suggestive of the warbling vireo, but finer than the former, clearer, louder and richer than the latter.
For my own part, I would rather have his cheerfulness and kind neighborhood than many berries. The screech-owl, whose cry, despite his ill name, is one o the sweetest sounds in nature, softens his voice in the same way with the most beguiling mockery of distance. For his cousin, the catbird, I have a still warmer regard.
The emerald edges of these silent tarns are starred with dandelions which have strayed here, one scarce knows how, from their foreign home; the buck-bean perchance grows in the water, or the Rhodora fixes here one of its shy camping-places, or there are whole skies of lupine on the sloping banks; the catbird builds its nest beside us, the yellow-bird above, the wood-thrush sings late and the whippoorwill later, and sometimes the scarlet tanager and his golden-haired bride send a gleam of the tropics through these leafy aisles.
Word Of The Day