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Again one day, somewhat later, when blue jay and catbird babies were rather numerous, I saw a blue jay dive into a lilac bush much frequented by catbirds, young and old together. Instantly there arose a great cry of distress, as though some one were hurt, and a rustling of leaves, proclaiming that a chase, if not a fight, was in progress.
It is the robin, catbird, thrush, bluebird, dove, woodpecker, chickadee, phoebe, tanager and other birds of the lawn, the garden and orchard that afford good hunting for sly and savage old Thomas. When I was a boy in my 'teens, I had a lasting series of object lessons on the cat as a predatory animal.
At length the happy thought came to me that I might select a position a little less conspicuous, yet still within sight, so I moved my seat farther off, away back under a low-branched apple-tree, where a redbird came around with sharp "tsip's" to ascertain my business, and a catbird behind the briar-bush entertained me with delicious song.
Then there are the plaintive singers, the soaring, ecstatic singers, the confident singers, the gushing and voluble singers, and the half-voiced, inarticulate singers. The note of the wood pewee is a human sigh; the chickadee has a call full of unspeakable tenderness and fidelity. There is pride in the song of the tanager, and vanity in that of the catbird.
A fruit-lover is the catbird, beginning with the June berries on the banks of streams near which she often builds her nest and continuing with wild strawberries, blackberries, wild grapes and the berries of the Virginia creeper sometimes also seen busily scooping out a big hole on the rosy side of a tempting apple in the orchard.
Only the birds sang as they never sing in autumn, a burst of clear, joyous anticipation the trill of the meadowlark, the "sweet, sweet, piercing sweet" of the flashing oriole, the call of the catbird, and the melody of the white-bosomed thrush.
The bluebird is similarly absent; the great flocks of blackbirds are gone; the bobolink is missing entirely; the thrush and the catbird have all left; the flicker and red-headed woodpecker are also spending their winter in the South. The great mass of our bird population has left us until warmer weather shall bring back to us once more our feathered friends.
In that case, the imitation was by no means so close as to deceive, but a free reproduction of the notes of some other birds, especially of the oriole, as a kind of variation in his own song. The catbird is as shy as the robin is vulgarly familiar. Only when his nest or his fledglings are approached does he become noisy and almost aggressive.
It is a particular catbird, identified, it may be, by a missing feather in his tail, that heads the foray on our strawberries and cherries. We recognize afar off either of the pair of "flickers," or yellow-shafted woodpeckers, which have set up their penates in the heart of the left-hand garden gatepost.
And feeling all ready for a lark one morning and not knowing what else to do, he decided to visit the meadow and play a trick on Bobby Bobolink and his wife. So when the Bobolinks were away from home on a short trip Mr. Catbird flew to their end of the meadow and hid in a bush not far from the spot where they had built their nest on the ground. From his hiding place Mr. Catbird watched closely.
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