66 The Wilderness Hunter. 



a musician of the first rank. The nightingale is a per- 

 former of a very different and far higher order ; yet though 

 it is indeed a notable and admirable singer, it is an ex- 

 aggeration to call it unequalled. In melody, and above 

 all in that finer, higher melody where the chords vibrate 

 with the touch of eternal sorrow, it cannot rank with such 

 singers as the wood thrush and hermit thrush. The 

 serene, ethereal beauty of the hermit's song, rising and 

 falling through the still evening, under the archways of 

 hoary mountain forests that have endured from time ever- 

 lasting ; the golden, leisurely chiming of the wood thrush, 

 sounding on June afternoons, stanza by stanza, through 

 sun-flecked groves of tall hickories, oaks, and chestnuts ; 

 with these there is nothing in the nightingale's song to 

 compare. But in volume and continuity, in tuneful, volu- 

 ble, rapid outpouring and ardor, above all in skilful and 

 intricate variation of theme, its song far surpasses that of 

 either of the thrushes. In all these respects it is more 

 just to compare it with the mocking-bird's, which, as a 

 rule, likewise falls short precisely on those points where 

 the songs of the two thrushes excel. 



The mocking-bird is a singer that has suffered much 

 in reputation from its powers of mimicry. On ordinary 

 occasions, and especially in the daytime, it insists on 

 playing the harlequin. But when free in its own favorite 

 haunts at night in the love season it has a song, or rather 

 songs, which are not only purely original, but are also 

 more beautiful than any other bird music whatsoever. 

 Once I listened to a mocking-bird singing the livelong 

 spring night, under the full moon, in a magnolia tree ; 

 and I do not think I shall ever forget its song. 



