380 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
he does eat at times, but he has as long a list of evil 
insects to his credit as the Robin himself. Unfortunately, 
owing to his size and plumpness, southern vandals shoot 
him in the fall and winter. Fancy silencing his heavenly 
voice for a pitiful mouthful of meat. 
“There is another Thrush that lives in your river woods, 
Dave, smaller than the Wood Thrushes, tawny of back, 
and a buffy breast with faint arrow-shaped spots upon it, 
the Wilson’s Thrush, or Veery. It has not so long and 
varied a song as either the Wood Thrush or the more 
northern Hermit-thrush, is really but an echo song, 
wonderfully pure and spiritual in quality. One of the 
Wise Men gives in syllables this ‘Ta-weel-ah-ta-weel-ah,’ 
pronounced in whispering head tones, and then repeated 
a third lower, ending with the twang of a stringed in- 
strument. 
“At evening and until quite late into the night these 
birds echo themselves and each other. It is not a song 
to hear amid laughter and talking, but for the heart that 
is alone, even if not lonely. To at least one of our poets, 
he who best interprets the song-life of birds, it rivals the 
famous English Nightingale. 
“Aside from its musical value, the Veery, feeding as it 
does almost altogether on insects, has a practical side as 
a neighbour. It also has a most penetrating call-note, a 
‘Whew! Whew!’ heard after the song is over, that is at 
once resentful, critical, and challenging, as if questioning 
your right to be in its woodland retreat in the nesting 
time, and condemning your persistence. Many people, 
who do not know the bird by sight, know both its echo 
song and its note of alarm and challenge. 
