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