contrasting strongly with such rollicking, hilarious songsters as the
bobolink, in whom we are chiefly pleased with tintinnabulation, the
verbal and labial excellence, and the evident conceit and delight of
the performer.

I hardly know whether I am more pleased or annoyed with the catbird.
Perhaps she is a little too common, and her part in the general chorus
a little too conspicuous. If you are listening for the note of another
bird, she is sure to be prompted to the most loud and protracted
singing, drowning all other sounds; If you sit quietly down to observe
a favorite or study a new-comer, her curiosity knows no bounds, and
you are scanned and ridiculed from every point of observation. Yet I
would not miss her; I would only subordinate her a little, make her
less conspicuous.

She is the parodist of the woods, and there is ever a mischievous,
bantering, half-ironical undertone in her lay, as if she were
conscious of mimicking and disconcerting some envied songster.
Ambitious of song, practicing and rehearsing in private, she yet seems
the least sincere and genuine of the sylvan minstrels, as if she had
taken up music only to be in the fashion, or not to be outdone by the
robins and thrushes. In other words, she seems to sing from some
outward motive, and not from inward joyousness. She is a good
versifier, but not a great poet. Vigorous, rapid, copious, not without
fine touches, but destitute of any high, serene melody, her
performance, like that of Thoreau's squirrel, always implies a
spectator.

There is a certain air and polish about her strain, however, like that
in the vivacious conversation of a well-bred lady of the world, that