MY PET WOOD THRUSHES. 195 



by the effect winch it produces on the mind. I do not know 

 to what instrumental sounds I can compare these notes, lor 

 I really know of none so melodious and harmonical. They 

 gradually rise in strength, and then fall in gentle cadences, 

 becoming at length so low as to be scarcely audible : like the 

 emotions of the lover, who at one moment exults in the hope 

 of 'possessing the object of his affections, and the next pauses 

 in suspense, doubtful of the results of all his efforts to please. 



" Several of these birds seem to challenge each other from 

 different portions of the forest, particularly towards evening, 

 and at that time nearly all the other songsters being about to 

 retire to rest, the notes of the Wood Thrush are doubly pleas- 

 ing. One would think that each individual is anxious to ex- 

 cel his distant rival, and I have frequently thought that on 

 such occasions their music is more than ordinarily effective, 

 as it then exhibits a degree of skilful modulation quite be- 

 yond my power to describe. These concerts are continued 

 for some time after sunset, and take place in the month of 

 June, when the females are setting." 



The Wood Thrush is seldom visible while it sings, and it 

 is partly owing to this modest shrinking from the common 

 gaze that few identify the bird with the song, and then it 

 seems so entirely the voice of the place the very language 

 of Shadow and the Wood that men are scarcely conscious 

 they do not expect it to be a living thing, or look to find a 

 bird more than they would think to search the clear rivulet 

 lapsing by, for some embodiment of murmurs. As with 

 Shelley's Sky-Lark, so is our Wood Thrush, 



" Like a poet hidden 

 In the light of thought, 

 Singing songs unbidden, 

 'Till the world is wrought 

 To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not." 



Were we an imaginative race, this mellow and mysterious 

 music would be the inspiration of many a charming myth ; 



