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Oo8 Oldys, A Remarkable Hermit Thrush Song. [bet 



A REMARKABLE HERMIT THRUSH SONG. 



BY HENRY OLDYS. 



While filling a lecture engagement at Hanover, N. H., early 

 in May, 1913, 1 was the guest of Dr. Frederic P. Lord, of Dartmouth 

 College. On the morning of the 6th my host and I visited a point 

 near Pompanoosuc, Vt., where a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers 

 nest annually. We were only partly successful in our quest — we 

 heard one of the birds we were seeking, but failed to catch even 

 a momentary glimpse of either of the pair. This disappointment, 

 however, was far more than compensated for by the fact that as we 

 sat in the mossy woods waiting for the woodpeckers I heard one 

 of the most remarkable bird songs that has come to my ears during 

 my twenty years' study of bird music. The singer, a Hermit 

 Thrush, was in plain sight not more than forty or fifty feet away 

 and gave ample opportunity for careful noting of the song. 



The ordinary song of the Hermit Thrush is made up of different 

 phrases each consisting of a sustained basal note followed by a run 

 of higher, more rapid, and lighter notes composing a broken chord 

 whose fundamental tone is the preceding sustained note. The 

 second part of the phrase, — the running notes — suggests the 

 thought that a material chord of glass has been shattered into 

 fine bits and that the crystalline fragments come tinkling down 

 through the leaves. Sometimes other notes than those of the 

 chord are introduced in the run but without destroying the char- 

 acter of the sustained note as the fundamental tone. Illustrations 

 will make this description clearer — 



J- 108. 



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In this song the chord is 



