DELAWARE VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 13 



arousing a teetering as of young in the brush. They had evi- 

 dently been there all that time, taking perhaps their midday 

 rest, for it was now well on towards five o'clock in the after- 

 noon. You could see no more than a few feet into the rhodo- 

 dendrons, and as they were practicallj^ impenetrable, I could 

 not find how many young were there. After hunting on the 

 stream for a few minutes the bird that had flown out of the 

 brush flew back into it, and that was the last I saw of him. 

 Even as late as August I usually came upon Water Thrushes by 

 the Buck Hill if I went there early in the morning, but after 

 the first week in July I never saw one there from ten to four 

 o'clock. They sang on until July 20, late in the evening and 

 earl}' in the morning. 



I am not sure I heard the song of the Northern Water Thrush 

 on the Buck Hill for I never saw one singing, but I got to know 

 well the song of the larger species and other less fine but un- 

 mistakably Water Thrush songs I put down to the northern 

 bird, and several times I saw this species just after hearing the 

 song I had attributed to it. The place in which the bird sings 

 lends largely to the charm of its song, but the song in itself is 

 the finest warbler song I know. In June I heard it at midday 

 flung out above the dappled amber pools under the hemlocks, 

 the purring and slucking of the water about the stones muffling 

 its sharpness so that the notes as thej' reached my ear were 

 clear and pure. Recall the more musical part of the Ovenbird's 

 flight-song and you will have something of its quality. In late 

 July I heard it at the hour when moonset and sunrise are one. 

 It could not compare with the song of the Veery heard at the 

 same time, and doubly precious so late in the season, but I 

 shall always associate it with that song, and with the dawnlight 

 over the mountains, and with the moon riding down westward 

 behind the pines. But it was even more memorable to hear it 

 at night. I never heard it at moonlit midnight as I have so 

 often heard the song of the Ovenbird, but perhaps I could have 

 heard it then had I been in the Buck Hill gorge at the proper 

 hour. There one evening in early July, I did hear the Louisi- 

 ana Water Thrush sing with an ecstasy and abandon I had not 

 heard from it before. Under a high bluff and just far enough 



