XXI 



THRUSHES 



WOOD THRUSH^ 



July 27, 1840. The wood thrush is a more modern 

 philosopher than Plato and Aristotle. They are now a 

 dogma, but he preaches the doctrine of this hour. 



May 31, 1850. There is a sweet wild world which 

 lies along the strain of the wood thrush — the rich 

 intervales which border the stream of its sonjr — more 

 thoroughly genial to my nature than any other. 



June 22, 1851. I hear around me, but never in sight, 

 the many wood thrushes whetting their steel-like notes. 

 Such keen singers ! It takes a fiery heat, many dry pine 

 leaves added to the furnace of the sun, to temper their 

 strains ! Always they are either rising or falling to a new 

 strain. After what a moderate pause they deliver them- 

 selves again ! saying ever a new thing, avoiding repetition, 

 methinks answering one another. While most other birds 

 take their siesta, the wood thrush discharges his song. 

 It is delivered like a bolas, or a piece of jingling steel. 



^ [The hermit thrush as well as the wood thrush breeds in Concord, 

 but Thoreau never learned to distinguish between the songs of the two 

 species and they were all wood thrushes to him. In the White Moun- 

 tains and the Maine woods he mistook the olive-backed thrusli also for 

 the wood thrush. It is not unlikely that some of the observations in- 

 cluded under this head belong of right to the hermit thrush, but oa 

 they would apply equally well to the wood thrush they are retained 

 here without question. Those that from the date or some other evi- 

 % dence clearly refer to the hermit are placed under that species.] 



