My Garden Acquaintance | Page 7

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 that case, the
imitation was by no means so close as to deceive, but a free
reproduction of the notes of some other birds, especially of the oriole,
as a kind of variation in his own song. The catbird is as shy as the robin
is vulgarly familiar. Only when his nest or his fledglings are
approached does he become noisy and almost aggressive. I have known
him to station his young in a thick cornel-bush on the edge of the
raspberry-bed, after the fruit began to ripen, and feed them there for a
week or more. In such cases he shows none of that conscious guilt
which makes the robin contemptible. On the contrary, he will maintain
his post in the thicket, and sharply scold the intruder who ventures to
steal *his* berries. After all, his claim is only for tithes, while the robin
will bag your entire crop if he get a chance.
Dr. Watts's statement that "birds in their little nests agree," like too

many others intended to form the infant mind, is very far from being
true. On the contrary, the most peaceful relation of the different species
to each other is that of armed neutrality. they are very jealous of
neighbors. A few years ago I was much interested in the housebuilding
of a pair of summer yellow-birds. They had chosen a very pretty site
near the top of a tall white lilac, within easy eye-shot of a chamber
window. A very pleasant thing it was to see their little home growing
with mutual help, to watch their industrious skill interrupted only by
little flirts and snatches of endearment, frugally cut short by the
common-sense of the tiny house-wife. They had brought their work
nearly to an end, and had already begun to line it with fern-down, the
gathering of which demanded more distant journeys and longer
absences. But, alas! the syringa, immemorial manor of the catbirds, was
not more than twenty feet away, and these "giddy neighbors" had, as it
appeared, been all along jealously watchful, though silent, witnesses of
what they deemed an intrusion of squatters. No sooner were the pretty
mates fairly gone for a new load of lining, than
"To their unguarded nest these weasel Scots Came stealing."(1)
Silently they flew back and forth, each giving a vengeful dab at the nest
in passing. They did not fall-to and deliberately destroy it, for they
might have been caught at their mischief. As it was, whenever the
yellow-birds came back, their enemies were hidden in their own
sight-proof bush. Several times their unconscious victims repaired
damages, but at length, after counsel taken together, they gave it up.
Perhaps, like other unlettered folk, they came to the conclusion that the
Devil was in it, and yielded to the invisible persecution of witchcraft.
(1) Shakespeare: *King Henry V.,* act i, scene 2.
The robins, by constant attacks and