How different from the manners of the robins are the manners of a pair of catbirds that have a nest in the honeysuckle against the side of the first-floor sleeping-porch! Nothing seems farther from the nature of the catbird than the hue and cry which the robin at times sets up. The catbird is sly and dislikes publicity. An appealing feline _mew_ is her characteristic note. She never raises her voice like the town-crier, as the robin does, perched in the mean time where all eyes may behold him. The catbird peers and utters her soft protest from her hiding-place in the bushes. This particular pair of catbirds appeared in early May and began slyly to look over the situation in the vines and bushes about the house. All their proceedings were very stealthy; they were like two dark shadows gliding about, avoiding observation--no tree-tops or house-tops for them, but coverts close to the ground. We hoped they would divine safety in the shadow of the cottage, but tried to act as if oblivious of their goings and comings. We saw them now and then stealthily inspecting the tangle of honeysuckle on the east side of the veranda, where a robin last season reared a brood, and the low hedge of barberry-bushes on the south side of the cottage, where a song sparrow had her nest. If they come, which will they take, we wondered. Several times in the early morning I heard the male singing vivaciously and confidently in the thick of the honeysuckle. I guessed that the honeysuckle was the choice of the male, and that his song was a pæan in praise of it, addressed to his mate. But it was nearly a week before his musical argument prevailed and the site was apparently agreed upon.
When the nest-building actually began, the birds were so shy about it that, watch as I might, I failed to catch them in the act. One morning I saw the mother bird in the garden with nesting-material in her beak, but she failed to come to the honeysuckle with it while I watched from a near-by covert. At the same time robins were flying here and there with loaded beaks, and wood thrushes were going through the air trailing long strips of white paper behind them, but the catbird was an emblem of secrecy itself. She, too, brought fragments of white paper to her nest, but no one saw her do it. Like other nest-builders, she apparently put in her big strokes of work in the early morning before the sleepers on the veranda were stirring. A few times my inquisitive eye, cautiously peering over the railing, started her from the vine, but I never saw her enter it with leaf, stick, or straw; yet slowly the nest grew and came into shape, and finally received its finishing touches. So cautiously had the birds proceeded that, were they capable of concepts like us, I should fancy they flattered themselves that we had not the least suspicion of their little secret. The male ceased to sing near the house after the nest was begun. So much time elapsed after the finishing of the nest before the first egg appeared in it that some members of the household feared the birds had deserted it, especially as they were not seen about the premises for several days. But the weather was wet and cool, and the eggs ripened slowly. Then one morning the birds were seen again, and one blue-green egg was discovered in the nest. The next morning another egg was added, and a third egg on the third morning, and a fourth on the fourth morning. In due time incubation began, and thenceforth all went well with our dusky neighbors.