116 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



of competition. His voice lacks the ring of 

 the wood thrush's and the hermit's ; it never 

 dominates the choir; but with the coppice 

 to itself and the listener close by, it has 

 sometimes a quality irresistible ; I do not 

 hesitate to characterize it as angelic. Of 

 this kind was the voice of a bird that used 

 to sing under my Franconia window at half 

 past three o'clock, in the silence of the 

 morning. 



The surpassing glory of the veery's song, 

 as all lovers of American bird music may be 

 presumed by this time to know, lies in its 

 harmonic, double-stopping effect, an ef- 

 fect, or quality, as beautiful as it is peculiar. 

 One day, while I stood listening to it under 

 the best of conditions, admiring the wonder- 

 ful arpeggio (I know no less technical word 

 for it), my pencil suddenly grew poetic. 

 " The veery's fingers are quick on the harp- 

 strings," it wrote. His is perfect Sunday 

 music, and the hermit's no less so. And 

 in the same class I should put the simple 

 chants of the field sparrow and the vesper. 

 The so-called " preaching " of the red-eyed 

 vireo is utter worldliness in the comparison. 



