Imagine their chagrin when they saw tilting upon the unleaved twig of a late catalpa tree a modest little gray bird with keen, bright eyes, who commenced a garble of all their songs called off in such merriment that the birds could not but appreciate the sport. Then the stranger, who was no other than Mr. Cat-bird, a cousin to the brown mocking-bird of the south, gave a weird cry exactly like a cat’s meow which so frightened the birds they flew hastily away to their several homes. Mr. Cat-bird was welcomed to Leafy Lawn, for his beautiful voice was an esteemed acquisition to the morning chorus, but he could not deceive the birds again with his imitative songs. Many a time, however, he would sit upon the corner of the house roof and perpetrate his joke on the boy in the hammock below, who thought he knew much about birds, but who could not understand why, when he heard so many different voices, there was only a little gray cat-bird within sight. Gertrude Southwick Kingsland. THE RUSTY BLACKBIRD OR GRACKLE. (_Scolecophagus carolinus._) Unlike the other blackbirds and our common orioles the Rusty Blackbird must not be sought in the orchards and fields of our farms and waysides, but in our forests and the heavily wooded banks of mountain streams and lakes. In such places this retiring bird passes the breeding season and raises its family in quiet solitude. It even seems to shun the company of its own kind and, unlike the red-winged blackbird, is seldom seen in large flocks. It is only in the spring that we may observe even small flocks from “whence issues a confused medley of whistles, sweeter and higher-pitched than the best efforts of the redwings.” Captain Charles Bendire says: “The ordinary call note sounds like ‘tehack, tehack,’ several times repeated; another like ‘turnlee, turnlee, turnlee,’ uttered in a clear tone and varied occasionally to ‘trallahee, trallahee.’” Few birds exhibit a more happy disposition. They seem always to be perfectly satisfied with their surroundings. One writer, quietly watching them, gathered in the trees about him, says that “The wind whistled loudly through the branches above, but these lively fellows began a serenade so joyous and full of gleeful abandon that I lingered long to hear them. In singing they opened the bill widely and the throat swelled with melody. Their notes are rich, varied and energetic. They are almost constantly in motion, chasing each other or flying from perch to perch, singing merrily most of the time.”