JUNE. 89 



out at a late hour in the evening than at an early hour 

 in the morning. 



The hour preceding dusk in the evening, however, is 

 the time when the thrushes, the most musical of birds, 

 are loudest in their song. Several different species of this 

 tribe of musicians, at a late hour, are almost the sole per- 

 formers. The catbird, with a strain somewhat similar to 

 that of the robin, less melodious, but more varied and 

 quaint in its expression, is then warbling in those places 

 where the orchards and the wildwood meet and are 

 blended together. The red-thrush, a bird still more re- 

 tired in its habits, takes his station upon a tree that stands 

 apart from the wood, and there pours forth his loud and 

 varied song, which may be heard above every other note. 

 A little deeper in the woods, near the borders of streams, 

 the veeries, the last to become silent, may be heard re- 

 sponding to one another, with their trilled and exquisite 

 notes, unsurpassed in melody and expression, from the 

 sun's early decline until the purple of twilight has nearly 

 departed. During all this time and the greater part of 

 the day, in the solemn depths of the forest, where almost 

 all other singing-birds are strangers, resounds the distinct, 

 peculiar, and almost unearthly warbling of the hermit- 

 thrush, who recites his different strains with such long 

 pauses and with such a varied modulation that they might 

 be mistaken for the notes of several different birds. 



At nightfall, though the air is no longer resonant with 

 song, our ears are greeted with a variety of pleasing and 

 romantic sounds. In the still darkness, apart from the 

 village hum, may be heard the frequent fluttering of the 

 wings of night birds, when the general silence permits 

 their musical vibrations to resound distinctly from differ- 

 ent distances, during their short, mysterious flights. These 

 sounds, to which I used to listen with ravishment in my 

 early days, are more suggestive than music, and always 



