"Catbird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him, and his song is rather of the Bloomfield sort, too largely ballasted with prose. His ethics are of the Poor Richard school, and the main chance which calls forth all his energy is altogether of the belly. He never has these fine intervals of lunacy into which his cousins, the catbird and the mavis, are apt to fall. But for a' that and twice as muckle 's a' that, I would not exchange him for all the cherries that ever came out of Asia Minor. With whatever faults, he has not wholly forfeited that superiority which belongs to the children of nature. He has ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... down fair rural glades Come sounds of tinkling bells, And songs of merry brown milkmaids Sweeter than catbird's ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... as a catbird with two tails!" sang out the fun-loving Rover. But his pale face was not in keeping with his words. Tom was not yet himself. But be wasn't going to show it— especially on Dick's ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield
... dawn, into which father and Evan vanished with their fishing rods; then sunrise, curtained by a slant of rain, during which the birds sang on with undamped ardour, a catbird making his debut for the season ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... at the same time smiled to herself. The Indian name "Pokamp" or catbird had come to her mind shortly after her quarrel with Miss McMurtry during the afternoon. "Minerva," she now proposed faintly, "she was the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... Great preparations were going on under the Lilac-Bush. Beetles had been at work all day clearing the grass and putting things in order. At nightfall the Turtles and the Frogs sounded the chimes, and a merry noise they made of it. The Catbird rang only one bell. Something evidently was to occur. A little later the glow-worms began to collect, and the place was illuminated. The Lilac-Bush was hung with quantities of them, and others darted ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... "I love to hear 'em. They's very amusin', very amusin'." My own feeling can hardly be a prejudice, conscious or unconscious, in favor of what has grown dear to me through early and long-continued association. The difference between the music of birds like the mocker, the thrasher, and the catbird and that of birds like the hermit, the veery, and the wood thrush is one of kind, not of degree; and I have heard music of the mocking-bird's kind (the thrasher's, that is to say) as long as I have heard music at all. The question ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... March; but these two ground-birds are seldom heard till toward the last of April. The ground-birds are all tree-singers or air-singers; they must have an elevated stage to speak from. Our long-tailed thrush, or thrasher, like its congeners the catbird and the mockingbird, delights in a high branch of some solitary tree, whence it will pour out its rich and intricate warble for an hour together. This bird is the great American chipper. There is no other bird that I know of that can chip with such emphasis ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... class feed by preference on fruits, nuts, and grain. The bluebird, robin, wood thrush, mocking-bird, catbird, chickadee, cedar-bird, meadow lark, oriole, jay, crow, and woodpecker belong to this group. These birds never fail to perform a service for us by devouring many ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... We now made another observation of the meridian altitude of the sun, and found that the mean latitude of the entrance of Maria's river, as deduced from three observations, is 47 degrees 25' 17" 2 north. We saw a small bird like the blue thrush or catbird which we had not before met, and also observed that the beemartin or kingbird is common to this country although there are no bees here, and in fact we have not met with the honey-bee since ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... human halloo, the "hoo! hohoo, hoo!" that comes out from the clustering foliage of an ancient hemlock. It is the solemn call of the owl, as he sits among the limbs, looking out from between the branches with his great round grey eyes. Listen again and you will hear the voice of the catbird, the brown thrush, the chervink, the little chickadee, the wood robin, the blue-jay, the wood sparrow, and a hundred other nameless birds that live and build their nests and sing among these ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... the songsters of the field and forest, and uttered with the utmost clearness and rapidity, I am sure you cannot hear short of the haunts of the genuine mockingbird. If not fully and accurately repeated, there are at least suggested the notes of the robin, wren, catbird, high-hole, goldfinch, and song sparrow. The pip, pip, of the last is produced so accurately that I verily believe it would deceive the bird herself; and the whole uttered in such rapid succession that it seems as if the movement that gives the concluding ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... a thicket of lilacs a catbird sang to us while we ate, and my dog lay in the shade with his nose on his paws and one eye open just enough to show any stray flies that he was not to be trifled with—and far away to the North and East one could catch glimpses—if ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... Eben; "I am going to cut the cords which bind your hands; you can then liberate Baker. When you are both free, keep still until you hear the cry of the catbird, and then leap to your feet and run, taking a course direct to the left; the boys are there in ambush, and you ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... flashed its red fin from one hollow to another. The shadow lifted a degree, the eye penetrated to farther regions; a bird piped warily, then freely, a second and a third answered, a fourth took up the tale, blue-jay and thrush, catbird and bobolink; wings began to dart about them, the world to rustle overhead, near and far the dark prime grew instinct with sound, the shores and heavens blew out gales of melody, the air broke up in music. He lifted his oars silently; she caught the sweet-brier, and, lightly shaking it, a rain of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various |
