10 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



the wood thrush, which, besides the veery or Wilson 

 thrush, was the only one that I had supposed could 

 be found in that Connecticut township. The song, 

 however, had a more ethereal quality, and I listened 

 in vain for the drop to the harsh bass notes which 

 always blemish the strain of the wood thrush. In- 

 stead, after three arpeggio notes, the singer's voice 

 went up and up, with a sweep that no human voice 

 or instrument could compass, and I suddenly real- 

 ized that I was in the presence of one of the great 

 singers of the world. For years I had read of the song 

 of the hermit thrush, but in all my wanderings I 

 had never chanced to hear it before. 



Lafcadio Hearn writes of a Japanese bird whose 

 song has the power to change a man's whole life. 

 So it was with me that midsummer evening. Some 

 thing had been added to the joy of living that could 

 never be taken from me. Since that twilight I have 

 heard the hermit thrush sing many times. Through 

 the rain in the dawn-dusk on the top of Mount 

 Pocono, he sang for me once, while all around a choir 

 of veerys accompanied him with their strange minor 

 harp-chords. One Sunday morning, at the edge of a 

 little Canadian river, I heard five singing together on 

 the farther side. "Ah-h-h, holy, holy, holy," their 

 voices chimed across the still water. In the woods, 

 in migration, I have heard their whisper-song, which 

 the hermit sings only when traveling; and once on a 

 May morning, in my back yard, near Philadelphia, 

 one sang for me from the low limb of a bush as 

 loudly as if he were in his mountain home. 



