THE BIRD REVEALS HIMSELF 57 



to bear upon him. A thrush, certainly, but 

 none that I knew ; neither hermit, wood, nor 

 tawny. While I tried to see some charac- 

 teristic by which to identify him, he spoke 

 again, this time the rich " quit " with the 

 peculiar added squawk, as I will call it, 

 which had mystified me in the mornings. 

 Meanwhile another of the family came noise- 

 lessly to a tree over my head, and whispered 

 the same cry in an indescribably sweet and 

 liquid tone. Still I looked in silence, and 

 still the bird remained on the spruce. But 

 after a while the danger of the presence of 

 one of the human family seemed to be borne 

 in upon him, and he suddenly startled me 

 with a new sound, a sort of shriek, loud and 

 on a much higher key. Even then I re- 

 mained motionless ; at last he grew some- 

 what more calm, and as if to put my last 

 doubt to rest and to prove that he alone was 

 author of all the sounds that had perplexed 

 me, he began to sing in a low tone many of 

 the strange clauses that I had heard shouted 

 from the tree-tops. Finally, when confidence 

 was assured by my unvarying stillness, he 

 flew to another tree-trunk, then to a second. 



