CHARACTER IN FEATHERS. 71 
and their dignified, quiet demeanor, they stand 
for the true aristocratic spirit. Like all genu- 
ine aristocrats, they carry an air of distinction, 
of which no one who approaches them can long 
remain unconscious. When you go into their 
haunts they do not appear so much frightened 
as offended. “ Why do you intrude?” they 
seem to say; “these are our woods;” and they 
bow you out with all ceremony. Their songs 
are in keeping with this character ; leisurely, 
unambitious, and brief, but in beauty of voice 
and in high musical quality excelling all other 
music of the woods. However, I would not 
exaggerate, and I have not found even these 
thrushes perfect. The hermit, who is my fa- 
vorite of the four, has a habit of slowly raising 
and depressing his tail when his mind is dis- 
turbed — a trick of which it is likely he is un- 
conscious, but which, to say the least, is not a 
mark of good breeding ; and the Wilson, while 
every note of his song breathes of spirituality, 
has nevertheless a most vulgar alarm call, a 
petulant, nasal, one-syllabled yeork. I do not 
know anything so grave against the wood 
thrush or the Swainson ; although when I have 
fooled the former with decoy whistles, I have 
found him more inquisitive than seemed alto- 
gether becoming to a bird of his quality. But 
character without flaw is hardly to be insisted 
