A MONTH'S MUSIC. 281 



now writing (May, 1884) I was favored with 

 thrush music to a quite unwonted degree. With 

 the exception of the varied thrush (a New-Eng- 

 lander by accident only) and the mocking-bird, 

 there was not one of our Massachusetts repre- 

 sentatives of the family who did not put me in 

 his debt. The robin, the brown thrush, the cat- 

 bird, the wood thrush, the veery, and even the 

 hermit (what a magnificent sextette !) — so 

 many I counted upon hearing, as a matter of 

 course ; but when to these were added the Arc- 

 tic thrushes — the olive-backed and the gray- 

 cheeked — I gladly confessed surprise. I had 

 never heard either species before, south of the 

 White Mountains ; nor, as far as I then knew, 

 had anybody else been more fortunate than 

 myself. Yet the birds themselves were seem- 

 ingly unaware of doing anything new or note- 

 worthy. This was especially the case with the 

 olive-backs ; and after listening to them for three 

 days in succession I began to suspect that they 

 were doing nothing new, — that they had sung 

 every spring in the same manner, only, in the 

 midst of the grand May medley, my ears had 

 somehow failed to take account of their contri- 

 bution. Their fourth (and farewell) appear- 

 ance was on the 23d, when they sang both morn- 

 ing and evening. At that time they were in a 

 bit of swamp, among some tall birches, and as 



