STUDY OF THE HERMIT'S SONG. 9 



over, she swung loyally back to her first love, 

 the wood thrush, of whose sublime voice she 

 says, " The first solemn opening note transports 

 you instantly into a holy cathedral." 



For myself, I have never been able to choose 

 permanently between these two glorious singers, 

 and at that time I had been under the spell of 

 the hermit song for days. Morning after 

 morning I had spent in the woods, listening to 

 the marvelous voice, and trying to discover its 

 charm. 



The bird began to sing his way down to us 

 about ten o'clock in the morning. I heard him 

 first afar off, then coming nearer and nearer, 

 till he reached some favorite perch in the woods 

 behind, and very near the farmhouse, before 

 noon, where he usually sang at intervals till 

 eight o'clock in the evening. I studied his song 

 carefully. It consisted of but one clause, com- 

 posed of a single emphasized note followed by 

 two triplets on a descending scale. But while 

 retaining the relative position of these few notes 

 he varied the effect almost infinitely, by chang- 

 ing both the key and the pitch constantly, with 

 such skill that I was astonished to discover the 

 remarkable simplicity of the song. A striking 

 quality of it was an attempt which he frequently 

 made to utter his clause higher on the scale 

 than he could reach, so that the triplets became 



