“I know them,” said Jack Todd; “they are mockers and jeerers for certain; when Dad and I plant the big south field with corn every spring, they come in the berry-bushes by the fence and tell us how to do it, and that if we’re smart and take their advice, we won’t cut the fence brush until they are done with nesting. “But can’t they pick cherries to beat the band? Last summer I was up in the ox-heart tree and they came in the top and picked ’em off, just as they grew in pairs, and flew away with them as pleased and satisfied as if they were picking them for market and were a week ahead of the season. Dad was awfully down on them once, but one morning about two years ago he got up at daylight to try and get the cutworms that were spoiling his early cauliflowers, and there were Thrashers and Catbirds doing the work for him, watching out for the worms to move ground just as clever as a man could. “As for the _Catbird_ or _New England Mockingbird_, trim of shape, and shrewd of eye, what should we do without him? He is a graphophone in feathers, that gives us selections from all the popular bird songs of the day, with this addition—there is no mechanical twang to mar the melody, and when the repertoire is ended he improvises by the hour. “Ah, the merry, mischievous Mocker, all dressed in a parson’s suit of gray, with a solemn black cap on his head that is as full of tricks as his throat is of music. “You say, ‘Yes, I know that he is a jolly musician, but my father says that he bites the best strawberries and cherries, and always on the ripest cheek!’ “Well, so he does _sometimes_; but his ancestors lived on that spot where your garden stands before yours did, and you have more ways of earning a living than he has. Give him something else to eat. Plant a little wild fruit along your fences. “Some people think that he likes to live in seclusion, but he doesn’t; he likes to be near people and perch on a clothes-pole to plume and sing. Yes, indeed, and he shall nest in the syringa nearest my garden, where he gets his fresh fruit for breakfast, and be the only thing with anything catlike about it on my premises!” THE CATBIRD He sits on a branch of yon blossoming bush, This madcap cousin of Robin and Thrush, And sings without ceasing the whole morning long Now wild, now tender, the wayward song That flows from his soft, gray, fluttering throat. But often he stops in his sweetest note, And, shaking a flower from the blossoming bough, Drawls out, “Mi-ew, mi-ou!” [Illustration: Dr. T. S. Roberts, Photo. CATBIRD ON NEST] XXV BIRD AND ARBOUR DAY AT FOXES CORNERS It was the first Friday of May, the day that was set apart for Arbour and Bird Day in the schools. Gray Lady and Miss Wilde had thought of having the celebration in Birdland, but for a good reason decided to hold it in the schoolhouse.