60 IN THE HEMLOCKS. 



— but seems to be the voice of that calm sweet so- 

 lemnity one attains to in his best moments. It real- 

 izes a peace and a deep solemn joy that only the 

 finest souls may know. A few nights ago I ascended 

 a mountain to see the world by moonlight ; and when 

 near the summit the hermit commenced his evening 

 hymn a few rods from me. Listening to this strain on 

 the lone mountain, with the full moon just rounded 

 from the horizon, the pomp of your cities and the 

 pride of your civilization seemed trivial and cheap. 



I have seldom known two of these birds to be sing- 

 ing at the same time in the same locality, rivaling 

 each other, like the wood-thrush or the veery. Shoot- 

 ing one from a tree, I have observed another take up 

 the strain from almost the identical perch in less than 

 ten minutes afterward. Later in the day when I 

 had penetrated the heart of the old " Barkpeeling," I 

 came suddenly upon one singing from a low stump, 

 and for a wonder he did not seem alarmed, but lifted 

 up his divine voice as if his privacy was undisturbed^ 

 I open his beak and find the inside yellow as gold* 

 I was prepared to find it inlaid with pearls and dia- 

 monds, or to see an angel issue from it. 



He is not much in the books. Indeed, I am ac- 

 quainted with scarcely any writer on ornithology 

 whose head is not muddled on the subject of oui 

 three prevailing song-thrushes, confounding eithej 

 their figures or their songs. A writer in the " At 

 iantic"^ gravely tells us the wood-thrush is 80in» 

 1 For Eeoember, 1858. 



