still see the cat-birds on the same spot, quite at home. Whether they are the same pair or not one cannot say.
Some persons do not admire the cat-bird, on account of his sober plumage; but the rich shaded grays of his coat strike us as particularly pleasing, and his form is elegant. His cry, to be sure, is odd enough for a bird, and sometimes when he repeats it twenty times in succession in the course of half an hour, one feels inclined to box his ears. It is the more provoking in him to insult us in this way, because some of his notes, when he chooses, are very musical—soft and liquid—as different as possible from his harsh, grating cry. Like his cousin, the mocking-bird, he often deserves a good shaking for his caprices, both belonging to the naughty class of “birds who can sing, and won't sing,” except when it suits their fancy.
The cat-bird is a great bather, like the goldfinch. He is said to use the cast-off skins of snakes to line his nest, whenever he can find them. He leaves us in October, and winters on the Gulf of Mexico.
Monday, 22d.—The apple-blossoms are charmingly fragrant now; they have certainly the most delightful perfume of all our northern fruit-trees.
The later forest-trees are coming into leaf; the black walnuts, butternuts, sumachs, hickories, ashes, and locusts. Trees with that kind of pinnated foliage seem to be later than others. The locust is always the last to open its leaves; they are just beginning to show, and a number of others, which partake of the same character of foliage, have only preceded them by a week or so. The springs are all running beautifully clear and full now. Corn planted to-day.
