IN THE HEMLOCKS. 57 



ances, a sort of accelerating chant. Commencing in 

 a very low key, which makes him seem at a very un- 

 certain distance, he grows louder and louder, till his 

 body quakes and his chant runs into a shriek, ringing 

 in my ears with a peculiar sharpness. This lay may 

 be represented thus : " Teacher teacher, teacher, 

 TEACHER, TEACHER!" — the accent on the first 

 syllable and each word uttered with increased force 

 and shrillness. No writer with whom I am acquainted 

 gives him credit for more musical ability than is dis- 

 played in this strain. Yet in this the half is not told. 

 He has a far rarer song, which he reserves for some 

 nymph whom he meets in the air. Mounting by easy 

 flights to the top of the tallest tree, he launches into 

 the air with a sort of suspended, hovering flight, like 

 certain of the finches, and bursts into a perfect ecstasy 

 of song, — clear, ringing, copious, rivaling the gold- 

 finch's in vivacity, and the linnet's in melody. This 

 strain is one of the rarest bits of bird-melody to be 

 heard. Over the woods, hid from view, the ecstatic 

 singer warbles his finest strain. In this song you in- 

 stantly detect his relationship to the water-wagtail 

 (Sciurus noveboracensis) — erroneously called water- 

 thrush, — whose song is likewise a sudden burst, full 

 and ringing, and with a tone of youthful joyousness in 

 it, as if the bird had just had some unexpected good 

 fortune. For nearly two years this strain of the pretty 

 walker was little more than a disembodied voice to me, 

 and I was puzzled by it as Thoreau by his mysterious 



