156 BULLETIN 19 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



hermit has been given the tribute of being the most gifted songster 

 in North America, and its song has often served as the inspiration 

 for poetic writers. 



M. Chamberlain (1882) described his impressions of the song of 

 the hermit thrush as he heard it near St. John, New Brunswick, 

 Canada, as follows: 



The music of the Hermit never startles you; it is in such perfect harmony with 

 the surroundings it is often passed by unnoticed, but it steals upon the sense of 

 an appreciative listener like the quiet beauty of a sunset. Very few persons have 

 heard him at his best. To accomplish this you must steal up close to his forest 

 sanctuary when the day is done, and listen to the vesper hymn that flows so 

 gently out upon the hushed air of the gathering twilight. You must be very 

 close to the singer or you will lose the sweetest and most tender pathetic passages, 

 so low are they rendered — in the merest whispers. I cannot, however, agree 

 with Mr. Burroughs that he is more of an evening than a morning songster, for 

 I have often observed that the birds in any given locality will sing more frequently 

 and for a longer period in the morning than in the evening. I prefer to hear him 

 in the evening, for there is a difference; the song in the morning is more sprightly — 

 a musician would say "has greater brilliancy of expression" — and lacks the 

 extreme tenderness of the evening song, yet both have the same notes and the 

 same "hymn-like serenity." The birds frequently render their matinal hymns 

 in concert and the dwellers in a grove will burst out together in one full chorus, 

 forming a grander Te Deum — more thrilling — than is voiced by surpliced choir 

 within cathedral walls. On one occasion an Indian hunter after listening to one 

 of these choruses for a time said to me, "That makes me feel queer." It was no 

 slight influence moved this red-skinned stoic of the forest to such a speech. 



Aretas A. Saunders, who has made intensive studies of many bird 

 songs, has written his interpretations and analysis of the hermit's 

 song, in personal correspondence as follows: "The song of the hermit 

 thrush is a long-continued one, made up of rather long phrases of 

 5 to 12 notes each, with rather long pauses. All the notes are sweet, 

 clear, and musical, like the tone of a bell, purer than the notes of the 

 wood thrush, but perhaps less rich in quality. The notes in each 

 phrase are not all connected. The first note is longest and lowest 

 in pitch, and the final notes are likely to be grouped in twos or threes, 

 the pitch of each group usually descending. Each phrase is similar 

 to the others in form but on a different pitch, as if the bird sang the 

 same theme over and over, each time in a different key. If one 

 listens carefully for each note, however, two different phrases are 

 rarely exact duplicates in form, but slightly varied, a likeness to 

 certain symphonies of some of the great composers. 



"In records of 38 different individual birds the pitch ranges from 

 F" to D#"", one tone less than two octaves. The average individual 

 has a range of about an octave. In looking over my records it is 

 quite apparent that birds in the Adirondacks ha ye a greater range 

 of pitch than those in Allegany State Park in southwestern New 



