AN OWL'S HEAD HOLIDAY. 259 
there than anywhere else ; but they were often 
to be heard by the lake-side, and in our apple 
orchard, and once at least one of them sang at 
some length from a birch-trce within a few feet 
of the piazza, between it and the bowling alley. 
As far as I have ever been able to discover, the 
hermit, for all his name and consequent reputa- 
tion, is less timorous and more approachable 
than any other New England representative of 
his ‘‘sub-genus.”’ 
On this trip I settled once more a question 
which I had already settled several times, — the 
question, namely, whether the wood thrush or 
the hermit is the better singer. This time my 
decision was in favor of the former. How the 
case would have turned had the conditions been 
reversed, had there been a hundred of the wood 
thrushes for one of the hermits, of course I can- 
not tell. So true is a certain old Latin proverb, 
that in matters of this sort it is impossible for 
a man to agree even with himself for any long 
time together. 
The conspicuous birds, noticed by everybody, 
were a family of hawks. The visitor might 
have no appreciation of music; he might go up 
the mountain and down again without minding 
the thrushes or the wrens, — for there is nothing 
about the human ear more wonderful than its 
ability not to hear; but these hawks passed a 
