CHAPTER III

THE CAT-BIRD

Why, so I will, you noisy bird, This very day I'll advertise you; Perhaps some busy ones may prize you.

He is not always the cat-bird, O no! He is one of our sweetest singers before day has fairly opened her eyes. Before it is light enough to be sure that what one sees be a bird or a shadow, the cat-bird is in the bushes.

Singing as he flits, this early riser and early eater passes from bush to bush on the fringed edge of morning, conscious of happiness and hunger. With a quaint talent for mimicry he tries to reproduce the notes of other birds, with partial success; giving only short snatches, however, as if afraid to trust himself.

In the hush of evening when the cricket's chirp has a drowsy tone, the cat-bird makes his melody, each individual with cadences of his own. Now like a thrush and now like a nightingale, he sings, though he is not to be compared with the mocking-bird in powers of mimicry. Yet his own personal notes are as sweet as the mocker's.

But, like most persons, he has "another side," on which account he came by his name. And his mate is Mrs. Cat-bird as well, for she, too, imitates the feline foe of all birds, more especially at nesting-time.

There is a legend to fit the case, as usual. This bird was once a great gray cat, and got its living by devouring the young of such birds as nest in low bushes.

All the birds met in convention to pray the gods they might be rid of this particular cat.

As no created thing may be absolutely deprived of life, but only transformed into some other being, this cat was changed into a bird, henceforth doomed to mew and scream like a kitten in trouble.

Its note long since ceased to have much effect upon the birds, who seldom mistake its cry for that of their real enemy in fur and claws.

Not so its human friends, for it takes a fine ear indeed to distinguish the bird from a cat when neither is in sight.

Now this bird, doomed, as the superstition runs, to prowl and lurk about in dark places near the ground, seldom flies high, nor does it often nest in trees. This does not prevent the singer from exercising his musical talents, however, more, than it does the meadow-lark or the song-sparrow.

It is in midsummer that the cat-bird is best known as the bird that "mews." Then both birds, if one approaches the nest, fly at the intruder, wings drooping, tail spread, beak open, whole attitude one of scolding anger.

In this mood the bird fears nothing, even making up to a stranger, and pecking at him. If it would pass with the waning summer and the maturing of the young birds, this bad temper of the cat-bird would be more tolerable; but once acquired, the habit clings to it, and it may be that not till next winter will it get over the fit.

The favorite site of the cat-bird for nesting, as we have observed it, is the middle of a patch of blackberry bushes, so dense and untrimmed it would be impossible for any one save a bird to reach it. Even the parent birds must creep on "all twos" or dodge along beneath the briers. We have known it to build in a thick vine over the door.

The cat-bird and brown thrasher were always together in our Tennessee garden; each fearless, nesting near the door, eating the same food, but differing in personal habits. The cat-bird's nest was in the blackberries, the thrasher's in the honeysuckle. We often borrowed the young thrashers for exhibition to our friends in the parlor. After the first time or two the parents did not care, but watched quietly from the vine for the return of their darlings.

The cat-bird neighbor, always prying about, took note of our custom and played "spy" in the honeysuckle. At the first opening of the door out peeped a black beak, from which proceeded the familiar cat-cry we had learned to not heed. Paying no attention to this self-appointed guardian of the little thrashers, we took them into the parlor, where they would remain for half an hour.

All this time the cat-bird kept up its mewing and screaming at the door, outside, nor did it cease until the birds were placed back in the nest.

The custom of the cat-birds everywhere to play the detective, and sound the note of warning in behalf of all the other birds, is well known. Is there danger anywhere, they rush to the rescue with imploring cry, setting up a great agony of sound and posture, very ludicrous if not pathetic.

And the poor cat-bird is always at swords' points with the farmer. Scarecrows a plenty deck the orchards and ornament the gardens. More do these historical and sometimes artistic beings serve to ease the farmer's conscience than to intimidate the birds; for it is well known that cat-birds thrive best under the grotesque shadows of the scarecrow. And the more horrible of face and figure are these individuals created, the more are they sought after by the very birds they are intended to scare out of their wits.

It will probably take another generation of fruit-men to wake up to the fact that these and other birds habitually mistake the scarecrow for a guide-board to "ways and means," or a sign for "home cooking."

Would the farmer stop when he has finished the very worst scarecrow he can conjure up out of last year's trousers and coat and hat and straw from the bedding mow, the birds would have fair play. But the shot-gun, alas! picks off the poor little mew bird almost as fast as he himself picked off the berries an hour before, and so the farmer is accused of having "no heart."

But the farmer's boy of the bare feet and brown legs loves the funny bird. He will sit for an hour near its brier-bound nest, chuckling at its screams and gestures, and wondering "why it isn't a cat for good and all."

Hast thou named all the birds without a gun? --O, be my friend and teach me to be thine.

Emerson.