VERY demure is the soft gray of the catbird's garb, but under it is hidden a spirit ever ready for frolic and fun. His liquid, shining eyes are very innocent, yet they are full of mischief. He always looks to me as if he had a secret—one, however, that he is willing to share with any friendly looker-on. Not even the chat takes a more genuine delight in sport. Hide-and-seek is a favorite game with the whole tribe, and in their shadowy gray, how they glide through the branches and lurk in the thick leaves! What mischievous peering out, sometimes clinging to a tree-trunk like a nuthatch, sometimes sitting absolutely still and almost invisible on a bend of a crooked bough! When discovered, a wild and reckless chase ensues; they skim in rapid flight over the level fields, or dash through the shrubbery in excited pursuit.

The catbird dearly loves to tease. I often saw one hide near the approach to an orchard oriole's nest, watching him with shining eyes of mischief. He never actually molested the oriole, and would fly away to some slender, swinging twig, after he had succeeded in startling the nest owner into a state of nervous alarm, so that he would complain to his mate for a half hour. The little scamp seemed thoroughly to enjoy his fright. He has keen vision, and darts down with wonderful swiftness on a worm far below his perch, while he can wheel and turn with surprising ease in pursuit of any victim. One of his most amusing performances is the way in which he nips off a shining, juicy blackberry with his sharp beak, glancing at you as if to ask, "Did you want that? You can't have it," and presto! the prize vanishes down his throat, and he hops to another cluster with an air of triumph. I love the little fellow in spite of his squawks and whims and naughty tricks. He looks so neat and trim with his soft gray and velvety black, and has such a pretty way of running along a bough with quick, short, pattering steps like a little child's, and such lovely, clear, musical tones when he chooses to be good, that it is hard to resist him. He has also a very warm heart for his mate and nestlings, and for his comrades as well. A gentleman relates that on one occasion, going too near a catbird's nest, the little owner aroused the others by his sharp cries, and they made such an attack upon him that he had to defend his face with his hat. They fear nothing when the nest is in danger.

The first alarm-note is usually a sort of cluck! cluck!—rather low and anxious. I saw my nephew one day take a young bird just out of the nest in his hand. Instantly the parents flew to him with their disturbed note. He put it down and went away, and a gray cat appeared. The place rang with the anguished cries of snake! snake! and the "taunt song," for so it seemed, was taken up by others in the depths of the woods. We did not succeed in saving all the brood from the stealthy cat, and it was pitiful to hear the birds lamenting. In a frenzy the mother-bird drove off furiously a Carolina wren that came to see what the trouble was, and even a female cardinal, that added her cries of resentment at her rough handling, until the whole bird world seemed in turmoil. The male cardinal appeared to answer his mate in soothing tones, but neither approached again the mourning catbirds.

Last summer there was a most beautiful singer in my neighborhood that added to his own melodies a marvelous mimicry of other birds. In one morning I have heard him repeat over and over the aoli of the wood thrush, the cardinal's notes, the songs of the indigo bird, the Maryland yellow-throat, the yellow-throated vireo, and the orchard oriole. Sometimes there would be a contest in song between the oriole and the catbird. The first was always the one to cease first, but each usually looked very dissatisfied—a ruffled ball of feathers at the end.

The loveliest experience was hearing on a spring morning a song so liquid, so sweet, so varied, and yet so low, scarce above a whisper, that it seemed a dream. I stole to the window—and there sat my little bright-eyed singer in shadowy gray, singing, as if all to himself, a shadow-song.