THEY REFUSE TO BE RECONCILED. 125 



bugaboo, and a robin or two, as usual, interested 

 themselves in the affairs of a neighbor in trouble. 



Thirty minutes proved to be as long as I could 

 bring myself to stay, and then I meekly retired 

 to the furthest corner of the field, where I made 

 myseK as inconspicuous as possible, and hoped I 

 might be allowed to remain. Kingbird and 

 robins accepted the compromise and returned to 

 their own affairs ; but the veeries by turns fed 

 the babies and reviled me from a tree near my 

 retreat, till I took pity on their distress and left 

 the orchard altogether. 



Not only does the veery exhibit this strong 

 liking for solitude, and express the loneliness of 

 the woods more perfectly than any other bird, 

 with the exception, perhaps, of the wood-pewee ; 

 but his calls and cries are all plaintive, many of 

 them sensational, and one or two really tragic. 



His most common utterance, as he flits lightly 

 from branch to branch, is a low, sweet "quee-o," 

 sometimes hardly above a whisper. When ev- 

 erything is quiet about him one may often hear 

 an extraordinary performance. Beginning the 

 usual call of "quee-o," in a tender and mournful 

 tone, he will repeat it again and again at short 

 intervals, every time with more pathetic inflec- 

 tion, till the wrought-up listener cannot resist 

 the feeling that the next sound must be a burst 

 of tears. Although his notes seem melancholy 



