The Audubon Magazine. 



Vol. II. 



JANUARY, 1889. 



No. 12. 



THE HERMIT THRUSH. 



ONE of our most abundant birds dur- 

 ing the seasons of migration, and 

 only at those times, is the Hermit Thrush. 

 It comes to us in New York and New Eng- 

 land every spring during the month of April, 

 lingers for perhaps a month, and in May 

 takes its flight for its summer home, leav- 

 ing us as unobtrusively as it came. But 

 when the harvest has been gathered and 

 the barns are full, when the ripened leaves 

 are turning golden and red and brown, and 

 the shorn stubble lies yellow in the slanting 

 sunshine, when the nights have become cool 

 and sometimes in the early morning the 

 grass of the meadows sparkles with white 

 hoar frost, then the Hermit Thrush is seen 

 again hopping silently about at the edge of 

 the wood or taking short flights from bush 

 to bush along the hedgerows. In the au- 

 tumn this bird stays with us longer than in 

 spring, and sometimes lingers into Decem- 

 ber, but it is in October that they are most 

 abundant in our woods. The southern 

 migration is performed slowly in loitering 

 fashion, the birds seeming to move singly 

 and never gathering in flocks. 



The Hermit Thrush is a shy, solitary 

 bird, fond of the deep woods and usually 

 shunning the fields and open spots. Cur- 

 iously enough, both Wilson and Audubon 

 considered this species as almost voiceless. 

 Wilson supposed it mute, and Audubon 

 speaks only of its single plaintive note, 

 while as a matter of fact it is one of our 



sweetest songsters. Nuttall, however, al- 

 ludes to it as scarcely inferior to the night- 

 ingale in its powers of song, and says that 

 it "greatly exceeds the wood thrush in the 

 melody and sweetness of its lays." Its song 

 has indeed been commented on by all later 

 writers. As remarked by Dr. Coues, how- 

 ever, " it may be questioned whether a com- 

 parison unfavorable to the wood thrush is a 

 perfectly just discrimination. The weird 

 associations of the spot where the Hermit 

 triumphs, the mystery inseparable from the 

 voice of an unseen musician, conspire to 

 heighten the effect of the sweet, silvery, 

 bell-like notes, which beginning soft, low, 

 and tinkling, rise higher and higher, to end 

 abruptly with a clear, ringing intonation. 

 It is the reverse of the lay of the wood 

 thrush, which swells at once into powerful 

 and sustained effort, then gradually dies 

 away, as though the bird were receding 

 from us; for the song of the Hermit first 

 steals upon us from afar, then seems to 

 draw nearer, as if the timid recluse were 

 weary of solitude, and craved recognition 

 of its conscious power to please. Yet it is 

 but a momentary indecision; true to a vow 

 of seclusion the anchorite is gone again to 

 its inviolate grotto in the fastnesses of the 

 swamp, where a world of melody is wasted ■ 

 in its pathetic song of life." 



Most of the Hermit Thrushes pass the 

 winter in the Southern States, and indeed 

 it is not certain that this bird goes south of 



