VEERY. 
The song ofthis Thrush with which Wilson himself 
is apparently unfamiliar, though the bird was named 
for him, is a most remarkable and beautiful glissande 
of overtones, without melody, and in a measure without 
definite pitch.* The tone effect at a distance is like the 
metallic twang of the Jew’s harp; nearer by it resembles: 
a reedy, harmonic strain from an accordion swinging in. 
the air. Some one, I do not know who, has called the 
song ‘‘ a spiral, tremulous silver thread of music.” The 
song is generally composed of, first, a pianissimo up- 
ward run of, perhaps, a minor third (a purely prelimi- 
nary one), second, a downward chromatic run repeated 
once, and third, another downward chromatic run, ap- 
parently beginning a minor third or maybe a major 
third below the other, and also repeated; the run in both 
cases is an indefinite one; it might include a third, a 
fourth, or even a fifth. The song could be represented 
in curving lines, thus: 
O. veerY, veery, veery veery! 
but I think it can be clearly and logically expressed in 
musical notation, thus: 
Sostenuto, This and the following records are twice 8va., exact pitch, 
@ AV ap la 
Caan PhO P| re * Dp Oa 2 D6) 2a 
"(iy ee er a Wc AM ER) (JE 
PASS En ~~ 0 TG 2 i ad a 
a 2 =e — | 
MP. m 
QO, peery, 
veery, veery, veery. 
To be sure there are variations of this form; for instance, 
I have often heard a song with four, instead of five, 
divisions, and with each of the three divisions succeed- 
ing the first dropping approximately a third, thus: 
* The fact that this Thrush sings far on into the evening hour has, 
through popular misapprehension, earned for it the strange title, 
American Nightingale! 
245 
