BIRDS OF WINTER, SPRING, AND AUTUMN. 
Prof TC. smiths notation. 
Undoubtedly we both have listened to the same species 
of Thrush, else the similarity of song-construction would 
be wholly unaccountable. 
Wilson was apparently ignorant of the music of this 
Thrush, and many other writers have been content with 
recording the fact that the bird is an eminent vocalist. 
but Mr. Cheney as a musician valued the singer as only 
a musician can, and has compared the climax of the 
song to the bursting of a musical rocket that fills the air 
with silver tones! Yes, the tones are silver—burnished 
silver, and sweeter far than those of any instrument 
created by the hand of man! The singer, too, is a bird 
of genius; a gentle and retiring spirit; the first of the 
Thrushes to come, the last to go, the soonest to pipe his 
joyous lay after the clearing away of the storm, the last 
to sing the vesper hymn, and the earliest to open the 
matutinal chorus at break of day. It was of him the 
poet wrote: 
‘*T heard from morn to morn a merry Thrush 
Sing hymns of rapture, while I drank the so 
With joy—and oft an unintruding guest, 
I watched him. . . .” 
BIRDS OF WINTER, EARLY SPRING, AND LATE 
AUTUMN 
This somewhat elastic classification includes three 
members of the two Owl Families, Alconide and Strigide; 
one member each of the Kingfisher Family, Alcedinide, 
the Woodpecker Family, Picide, the Flycatcher Family, 
Tyrannide, the Starling Family, Sturnide, and the Wax- 
wing Family, Bombycillide; and many members of the 
Finch or Sparrow Family, Fringillide. With four excep- 
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