Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual Part 21

18. Canary

19. Loon

20. Whippoorwill

21. Weaver

22. Bunting

23. Lark

24. Stork

25. Swallow

26. Rail

27. Mocking bird

28. Cuckoo

29. Nightingale

30. Owl

THE CATBIRD.

He sits on the branch of yon blossoming tree, This mad-cap cousin of Robin and Thrush, And sings without ceasing the whole morning long; Now wild, now tender, the wayward song That flows from his soft gray, fluttering throat; But oft he stops in his sweetest note, And shaking a flower from the blossoming bough, Drawls out: "Mi-eu, mi-ow!"

--_Edith M. Thomas._

THE MOCKING BIRD.

He didn't know much music When first he come along; An' all the birds went wonderin'

Why he didn't sing a song.

They primed their feathers in the sun, An' sung their sweetest notes; An' music jest come on the run From all their purty throats!

But still that bird was silent In summer time an' fall; He jest set still an' listened An' he wouldn't sing at all!

But one night when them songsters Was tired out an' still, An' the wind sighed down the valley An' went creepin' up the hill;

When the stars was all a-tremble In the dreamin' fields o' blue, An' the daisy in the darkness Felt the fallin' o' the dew,--

There come a sound o' melody No mortal ever heard, An' all the birds seemed singin'

From the throat o' one sweet bird!

Then the other birds went playin'

In a land too fur to call; Fer there warn't no use in stayin'

When one bird could sing fer all!

--_Frank L. Stanton._

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Buckeye State]