n, where they know I shall not suspect them of
robbing the great black-walnut of its bitter-rinded store.(1) They are
feathered Pecksniffs, to be sure, but then how brightly their breasts,
that look rather shabby in the sunlight, shine in a rainy day against
the dark green of the fringe-tree! After they have pinched and shaken
all the life of an earthworm, as Italian cooks pound all the spirit
out of a steak, and then gulped him, they stand up in honest
self-confidence, expand their red waistcoats with the virtuous air of
a lobby member, and outface you with an eye that calmly challenges
inquiry. "Do _I_ look like a bird that knows the flavor of raw vermin?
I throw myself upon a jury of my peers. Ask any robin if he ever ate
anything less ascetic than the frugal berry of the juniper, and he will
answer that his vow forbids him." Can such an open bosom cover such
depravity? Alas, yes! I have no doubt his breast was redder at that very
moment with the blood of my raspberries. On the whole, he is a doubtful
friend in the garden. He makes his dessert of all kinds of berries, and
is not averse from early pears. But when we remember how omnivorous he
is, eating his own weight in an incredibly short time, and that Nature
seems exhaustless in her invention of new insects hostile to vegetation,
perhaps we may reckon that he does more good than harm. For my own part,
I would rather have his cheerfulness and kind neighborhood than many
berries.

(1) The screech-owl, whose cry, despite his ill name, is one o the
sweetest sounds in nature, softens his voice in the same way with the
most beguiling mockery of distance. J.R.L.

For his cousin, the catbird, I have a still warmer regard. Always a
good singer, he sometimes nearly equals the brown thrush, and has the
merit of keeping up his music later in the evening than any bird of my
familiar acquaintance. Ever since I can remember, a pair of them have
built in a gigantic syringa near our front door, and I have known the
male to sing almost uninterruptedly during the evenings of early summer
till twilight duskened into dark. They differ greatly in vocal talent,
but all have a delightful way of crooning over, and, as it were,
rehearsing their song in an undertone, which makes their nearness
always unobtrusive. Though there is the most trustworthy witness to the
imitative propensity of this bird, I have only once, during an intimacy
of more than forty years, heard him indulge it. In tha