nd of way. She would do this also when bringing food to her
first brood. When one of the parent birds of any species simulates by
voice or manner the young birds, it is always the female; her heart
would naturally be more a-quiver with anticipation than that of the
male.

On the fifth day the nest was completed and received its first egg.
There was considerable delay with the second egg, but it appeared on the
second or third day, and the third egg the following day. Then
incubation began. In twenty days from the day the nest was begun, the
birds were hatched, and in eleven days more they had quietly left the
nest.

A friend of mine who has a summer home on one of the trout-streams of
the Catskills discovered that the catbird was fond of butter, and she
soon had one of the birds coming every day to the dining-room window for
its lump of fresh butter, and finally entering the dining-room, perching
on the back of the chair, and receiving its morsel of butter from a fork
held in the mistress's hand. I think the butter was unsalted. My friend
was convinced after three years that the same pair of birds returned to
her each year, because each season the male came promptly for his
butter.

The furtive and stealthy manners of the catbird contrast strongly with
the frank, open manners of the thrushes. Its cousin the brown thrasher
goes skulking about in much the same way, flirting from bush to bush
like a culprit escaping from justice. But he does love to sing from the
April tree-tops where all the world may see and hear, if said world does
not come too near. In the South and West the thrasher also nests in the
vicinity of houses, but in New York and New England we must look for him
in remote, bushy fields. I do not know of any bad traits that go with
the thrasher's air of suspicion and secrecy, but I do know of one that
goes with the catbird's--I have seen her perch on the rim of another
bird's nest and deliberately devour the eggs. But only once. Whether or
not she frequently does this, I have no evidence. If she does, she is
doubtless so sly about it that she escapes observation.

I welcomed the catbird, though she is not so attractive a neighbor as
the wood thrush. She has none of the wood thrush's dignity and grace.
She skulks and slinks away like a culprit, while the wood thrush stands
up before you or perches upon a limb, and turns his spotted waistcoat
toward you in the most open and trusting manner. In fact, few bir