VEERY. 



The song of this Thrush with which Wilson himself 

 is apparently unfamiliar, though the bird was named 

 for him, is a most remarkable and beautiful glissando 

 of overtones, without melody, and in a measure without 

 definite pitch.* The tone effect at a distance is like the 

 metallic twang of the Jew's harp; nearer by it resembles 

 a reedy, harmonic strain from an accordion swinging in 

 the air. Some one, I do not know who, has called the 

 song " a spiral, tremulous silver thread of music." The 

 song is generally composed of, first, a pianissimo up- 

 ward run of, perhaps, a minor third (a purely prelimi- 

 nary one), second, a downward chromatic run repeated 

 once, and third, another downward chromatic run, ap- 

 parently beginning a minor third or maybe a major 

 third below the other, and also repeated; the run in both 

 cases is an indefinite one; it might include a third, a 

 fourth, or even a fifth. The song could be represented 

 in curving lines, thus: 



veery, veery, veert, 



but I think it can be clearly and logically expressed in 

 musical notation, thus: 



Swtenuto. This and the following records are iwice 6 v<i. } exact pitch. 



- _ ^ 



O t veery, veery, veery^ veery. 



To be sure there are variations of this form ; for instance. 

 I have often heard a song with four, instead of five, 

 divisions, and with each of the three divisions succeed- 

 ing the first dropping approximately a third, thus: 



* The fact that this Thrush sings far on into the evening hour has, 

 through popular misapprehension, earned for it the strange title, 

 American Nightingale! 



