140 SCRAPING ACQUAINTANCE. 
preoccupied. If you would enjoy it you must 
bring an ear to hear. I have sometimes pleased 
myself with imagining a resemblance between 
it and the poetry of George Herbert, — both 
uncared for by the world, but both, on that very 
account, prized all the more dearly by the few 
in every generation whose spirits are in tune 
with theirs. 
This bird is one of a group of small thrushes 
called the Hylocichle, of which group we have 
five representatives in the Atlantic States: the 
wood thrush; the Wilson, or tawny thrush ; 
the hermit ; the olive-backed, or Swainson ; and 
the gray-cheeked, or Alice’s thrush. To the 
unpracticed eye the five all look alike. All of 
them, too, have the same glorious voice, so that 
the young student is pretty sure to find it a 
matter of some difficulty to tell them apart. 
Yet there are differences of coloration which 
may be trusted as constant, and to which, after 
a while, the eye becomes habituated; and, at 
the same time, each species has a song and call- 
notes peculiar to itself. One cannot help wish- 
ing, indeed, that he might hear the five singing 
by turns in the same wood. Then he could fix 
the distinguishing peculiarities of the different 
songs in his mind so as never to confuse them 
again. But this is more than can be hoped 
for; the listener must be content with hearing 
