140 SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 



preoccupied. If you would enjoy it you must 

 bring an ear to hear. I have sometimes pleased 

 myself with imagining a resemblance between 

 it and the poetry of George Herbert, — both 

 uncared for by the world, but both, on that very 

 account, prized all the more dearly by the few 

 in every generation whose spirits are in tune 

 with theirs. 



This bird is one of a group of small thrushes 

 called the Hylocicliloe^ of which group we have 

 five representatives in the Atlantic States : the 

 wood thrush ; the Wilson, or tawny thrush ; 

 the hermit ; the olive-backed, or Swainson ; and 

 the gray-cheeked, or Alice's thrush. To the 

 unpracticed eye the five all look alike. All of 

 them, too, have the same glorious voice, so that 

 the young student is pretty sure to find it a 

 matter of some difficulty to tell them apart. 

 Yet there are differences of coloration which 

 may be trusted as constant, and to which, after 

 a while, the eye becomes habituated ; and, at 

 the same time, each species has a song and call- 

 notes peculiar to itself. One cannot help wish- 

 ing, indeed, that he might hear the five singing 

 by turns in the same wood. Then he could fix 

 the distinguishing peculiarities of the different 

 songs in his mind so as never to confuse them 

 again. But this is more than can be hoped 

 for ; the listener must be content with hearing 



