File:Birds and nature in natural colors - being a scientific and popular treatise on four hundred birds of the United States and Canada (1913) (14568576310).jpg

Identifier: birdsnatureinnat02chic (find matches)
Title: Birds and nature in natural colors : being a scientific and popular treatise on four hundred birds of the United States and Canada
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds -- North America
Publisher: Chicago : A.W. Mumford, Publisher
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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singers. The famous mocking bird andour much praised thrasher are its near of kin. while the voluble wrens are itsmore distant relative. It is no wonder, then, that the catbirds glor)^ is its song. Occasionally the catbird returns to the state before the middle of April.The majority wait until the first week in May. By the middle of May they arein full song. From the coverts of the thicket comes a wondrous burst of song;Tripping gaily, pressing, crowding, flood the liquid notes along!Tis the catbird, dear old Orpheus, with a heart as full of joyAs our quaint old Quaker poet or his whistling bare-foot boy. A hundred and fifty years ago the catbird received its first scientific name.It was then called a flycatcher. In 1831 it was given a new name by Swainson,an English naturalist, who must have been very much charmed by our blue-graysinger, for he not only named it Orpheus, after the famous singer of ancientThrace, but painted the lily by calling it Orpheus felivox, the sweet-voiced 258
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MFORD, CMICA y- Orpheus. The great Audubon used the name Orpheus in 1839. In 1847 thename was again changed, this time to mimus, the mocker, showing that the peoplehad recognized a new quality in the song. In 1855 some prosy, Greek-mindedstudent thought to make the name fit still more precisely, and changed it to theunmusical galeoscoptes, the imitator of the cat. We regret, however, that the appropriate name Orpheus, standing for thecatbirds real major character as a singer, should give way to one standing onlyfor an occasional minor note of alarm. As the copses come into leafage in May catbirds and thrashers fill the airwith their delightful song. Now the ear may distinguish between these twofamous singers. We listen to the trills and runs and vocal gymnastics. We close our eyes and give the ears the whole enjoyment. How similarthe strains! And yet there is a difference; gradually the ear makes its analysis.Repetition, yes, the notes that come from the top spray of the tree come inc

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