226 BULLETIN 19 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



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. 



Frank Bolles (1891) also recognized the artistry of the veery's 

 singing. He says : "The song of the veery has in it the tinkling of bells, 

 the jangle of the tamborine. It recalls to me the gypsy chorus in the 

 'Bohemian Girl,' and when I hear it as evening draws on, I can 

 picture light feet tripping over the damp grass, and in the shadows 

 made by moving of branches and ferns I can see dark forms moving 

 back and foith in the windings of the dance." 



Henry Oldys (1916), writing of "Rhythmical Singing of Vecries," 

 comments on the chordlike effect occurring in the bird's song, saying: 

 "In the notations of Veeries' songs made by other musicians the closing 

 notes have sometimes been represented as chords; but I believe that 

 what these listeners heard were not actual chords, but broken chords, 

 the separate notes of which were uttered so rapidly as to cause them 

 to seem to blend in complete harmony." Sydney E. Ingraham (1938) 

 published a photographic graph of a veery's song which is in accord 

 with Oldvs's opinion and speaks of the song as "like five-finger exercises 

 on a harp." Thus Torrey's surmise, made over a half a century ago, 

 is confirmed. 



Aretas A. Saunders's (MS.) records show more or less variation in 

 the song. "Some birds," he says, "sing the first slurs slowly and then 

 the last two or three very rapidly; others have a simple, unslurred 

 note at the beginning, or interpolated somewhere in the middle ; some 

 prolong the last note; some have slurs that rise and fall, like rayeeoh. 

 The pitch of veery songs, according to my records, varies from D"" 

 to B 1?" ', two tones more than an octave, which is much less than the 

 range of other thrushes." 



The commonest call note of the veery is a smoothly whistled hee-oo 

 or wheew. This note may be used as an alarm note, but when much 

 distressed, over danger to its young, for instance, the bird gives a note 

 like whuck, low and guttural, very much like the quack of a catbird, 

 or a long, loud, quavering ka-a-a-a-a, suggesting a red-eyed vireo's 

 snarl. Dr. C. W. Townsend (1905) says that they "hiss like a Robin." 



William Brewster (1936) speaks of a habit of the veery when 

 singing: "I do not remember to have noted before that the Wilson's 

 Thrush, like so many other birds, has favorite singing perches to which 

 it resorts day after day. This, at least, is true of a bird which is 

 breeding somewhere near the east end of Ball's Hill and which sings 

 every evening in the large red oak on the edge of Holden's Meadow, 

 sitting invariably not only on the same branch but actually on the 

 same twig and always facing towards the northwest." 



L. Nelson Nichols (MS.) adds: "The wheeling, weaving song is 



