[Illustration: Fig. 6.--Catbird. Length, about 9 inches.]
The catbird[15] (fig. 6), like the thrasher, is a lover of thickets and
delights to make its home in a tangle of wild grapevines, greenbriers,
and shrubs, where it is safe from attack and can find its favorite food
in abundance. It is found throughout the United States west to the Rocky
Mountains, and extends also from Washington, Idaho, and Utah northward
into the Provinces of Canada. It winters in the Southern States, Cuba,
Mexico, and Central America.
[15] _Dumetella carolinensis_.
Reports from the Mississippi Valley indicate that the catbird is
sometimes a serious annoyance to fruit growers. The reason for such
reports may possibly be found in the fact that on the prairies
fruit-bearing shrubs, which afford so large a part of this bird's food,
are conspicuously absent With the settlement of this region comes an
extensive planting of orchards, vineyards, and small-fruit gardens, which
furnish shelter and nesting sites for the catbird as well as for other
species. There is in consequence a large increase in the numbers of the
birds, but no corresponding gain in the supply of native fruits upon
which they were accustomed to feed. Under these circumstances what is
more natural than for the birds to turn to cultivated fruit for their
food. The remedy is obvious: Cultivated fruits can be protected by the
simple expedient of planting the wild species which are preferred by the
birds. Some experiments with catbirds in captivity show that the Russian
mulberry is preferred to any cultivated fruit.
The stomachs of 645 catbirds were examined and found to contain 44 per
cent of animal (insect) and 56 per cent of vegetable food. Ants, beetles,
caterpillars, and grasshoppers constitute three-fourths of the animal
food, the remainder being made up of bugs, miscellaneous insects, and
spiders. One-third of the vegetable food consists of cultivated fruits,
or those which may be cultivated, as strawberries, raspberries, and
blackberries; but while we debit the bird with the whole of this, it is
probable--and in the eastern and well-wooded part of the country almost
certain--that a large part is obtained from wild vines. The rest of the
vegetable matter is mostly wild fruit, as cherries, dogwood, sour gum,
elderberries, greenbrier, spiceberries, black alder, sumac, and poison
ivy. Although the catbird sometimes does considerable harm by destroying
small fruit, it can not on the whole be considered injurious. On the
contrary, in most parts of the country it does far more good than harm.