218 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



trumpeting in our orchards; the rose-breasted grosbeaks are whis- 

 tling their sweet tune from our roadside trees ; all the vireos are here, 

 the red-eyed, the yellow- throated, the warbling, singing on their 

 nesting grounds; the resident warblers are everywhere, squeaking out 

 their tiny songs. 



In contrast to these noisy travelers, the veery comes silently back 

 to his summer home. We do not know that he is here until we go 

 into his quiet, moist woodlands and hunt about for him. Here we 

 find him easily, on the ground sometimes, not yet hidden by dense 

 summer foliage, sometimes up in the trees where the little leaves, 

 still unexpanded, do not conceal him. He is reserved and silent thus 

 early in the season; we do not hear a note of his heavenly music, 

 and we shall not for a week or two. 



Horace W. Wright (1909) points out that veeries do sing occa- 

 sionally during their spring migration. Speaking of veeries on the 

 Boston Public Garden, he says: "The song has been heard, especially 

 upon a damp day, audible above the din of the city." 



William Brewster (1937) comments on the long interval of silence 

 between the veery's arrival and its first song. Under date of May 19, 

 1899, he says: 



Wilson's Thrushes began singing to-day. * * * At evening there was 

 general and protracted singing all around the Hill and in the blueberry swamp 

 behind it, at least five or six birds taking part. All of them seemed to be in 

 excellent form. Why is it that this species remains silent so long after its arrival? 

 I saw the first this season on May 2, and by the 10th they were abundant. Liv- 

 ing, as I do now, in the very midst of their favorite haunts, I should have known 

 it had there been any singing before to-day. They have called a little at morn- 

 ing and evening and uttered the bleating notes but not once have I heard the 

 song before this morning. Seventeen days is a longer period of silence than 

 usual, however. 



Courtship. — I find in my notes only one slight reference to the 

 courtship of the veery, on May 18, 1914, and the two birds whose 

 actions are described may possibly have been rival males, for the 

 sexes are indistinguishable. The species arrived in Lexington, Mass., 

 that year on May 7th, and I did not hear a bird sing until the 22d. 

 The note reads: "Although the veeries in the swamp this morning 

 were not singing, two birds were going through evidently a sort of 

 courtship maneuver. They were perched low in a shrub, less than a 

 yard apart, holding themselves motionless with the head drawn some- 

 what backward, the bill pointing upward at an angle of about 45° 

 and turned slightly to one side. One of the birds slowly raised its 

 tail to a marked angle with its body and moved it upward and down- 

 ward very deliberately in the customary manner of the hermit thrush. 

 The feathers of this bird's rump were elevated slightly and so sepa- 

 rated that they appeared of a darker color than the back. The other 



