TANGLES OF BIRD-SONG. 107 



large trees. What a tangle of music ! Brown 

 thrushes to right of me, brown thrushes to left of 

 me, brown thrushes in front of me, volleyed and 

 thundered — in a lyrical way, of course. The 

 "throstle's wild, summer-swung tune" it was. 

 There must have been ten or a dozen performers in 

 that thrush oratorio. They seemed to be in a per- 

 fect frenzy, trilling and quavering, and making 

 all kinds of vocal display. I do not believe they 

 mimicked, but performed their own compositions. 

 It was a good opportunity to study the different 

 qualities of thrush voice. There was one songster 

 especially, perched on a thorn-tree beyond a little 

 hollow, whose tones were of excellent timbre ; loud, 

 flexible, sweet and liquid, ringing above the 

 general symphony. While all the birds seemed to 

 be in good tune, many grades of excellence could be 

 discerned. Like a sweet, far-away accompaniment, 

 the song of a thrush was wafted to me from a 

 thicket beyond the brow of the hill. Several 

 cardinal grossbeaks whistled on their flutes, a lark 

 finch or two sung cheerily, while, interlaced in the 

 general network of song, I could hear the swing- 

 ing whit-ti-te^ whit-ti~te^ whit-ti-te of the Maryland 

 yellow-throat coming up from the copse at the 

 edge of a marsh. 



