About the first of June there is a nest in the woods, upon the ground, with four creamy-white eggs in it, spotted with brown or lilac, chiefly about the larger ends, that always gives the walker who is so lucky as to find it a thrill of pleasure. It is like a ground sparrow's nest with a roof or canopy to it. The little brown or olive backed bird starts away from your feet and runs swiftly and almost silently over the dry leaves, and then turns her speckled breast to see if you are following. She walks very prettily, by far the prettiest pedestrian in the woods. But if she thinks you have discovered her secret, she feigns lameness and disability of both leg and wing, to decoy you into the pursuit of her. This is the oven-bird. The last nest of this bird I found was while in quest of the pink cypripedium. We suddenly spied a couple of the flowers a few steps from the path along which we were walking, and had stooped to admire them, when out sprang the bird from beside them, doubtless thinking she was the subject of observation instead of the rose-purple flowers that swung but a foot or two above her. But we never should have seen her had she kept her place. She had found a rent in the matted carpet of dry leaves and pine needles that covered the ground, and into this had insinuated her nest, the leaves and needles forming a canopy above it, sloping to the south and west, the source of the more frequent summer rains.
It requires an effort for me to speak of the singing catbird as he; all the ways and tones of the bird seem so distinctly feminine. But it is, of course, only the male that sings. At times I hardly know whether I am more pleased or annoyed with him. Perhaps he is a little too common, and his part in the general chorus a little too conspicuous. If you are listening for the note of another bird, he is sure to be prompted to the most loud and protracted singing, drowning all other sounds; if you sit quietly down to observe a favorite or study a new-comer, his curiosity knows no bounds, and you are scanned and ridiculed from every point of observation. Yet I would not miss him; I would only subordinate him a little, make him less conspicuous.
He is the parodist of the woods, and there is ever a mischievous, bantering, half-ironical undertone in his lay, as if he were conscious of mimicking and disconcerting some envied songster. Ambitious of song, practicing and rehearsing in private, he yet seems the least sincere and genuine of the sylvan minstrels, as if he had taken up music only to be in the fashion, or not to be outdone by the robins and thrushes. In other words, he seems to sing from some outward motive, and not from inward joyousness. He is a good versifier, but not a great poet. Vigorous, rapid, copious, not without fine touches, but destitute of any high, serene melody, his performance, like that of Thoreau's squirrel, always implies a spectator.