July 



say anything more. Summarized, the cardinal 

 is brilliant, stately, unsocial, and apparently not 

 anxious to make the most of his gifts. Can any 

 one say that birds are not types of mankind ? 



* 



The wood thrush as a singer is sui generis. 

 A well-known writer once divided the human 

 race into two parts all the rest of the world, 

 and the Beecher family. With much the same 

 propriety we may divide all our song-birds into 

 two groups all the rest of the songsters, and 

 the thrush family. The voice of the wood 

 thrush (and the same is true of the veery and 

 the hermit thrush) is so unique as quite to pre- 

 clude all comparison. The oriole, the purple 

 finch, the goldfinch, the rose-breasted grosbeak, 

 have each its special excellence, but they are all 

 measured in the terms of each other they are 

 all, so to speak, human ; the wood thrush, to 

 use a much-abused term, is divine. In listen- 

 ing to any one of the finches I have named, one 

 is quite likely to think of the others, even if it 

 be in the way of the most flattering contrast ; 

 but when he hears the wood or the hermit 

 thrush or the veery, he simply forgets the 

 others. There seems to be a soul speaking in 

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