PROFESSIONAL MUSICIANS 97 



are to certain natures the consummation of song." 

 Further than this it is difficult to describe the 

 music of the thrush. Thoreau pays a delightful 

 tribute to the wood thrush, and a poetic description 

 of its song: "Some birds are poets and sing all 

 summer. I am reminded of this while we rest in 

 the shade and listen to a wood thrush now, just be- 

 fore sunset. . . . The wood thrush's is no opera 

 music. It is not so much the composition as the 

 strain, the tone, that interests us — cool bars of mel- 

 ody from the atmosphere of everlasting morning 

 and evening. It is the quality of the sound, not 

 the sequence. In the pewee's note there is some 

 sultriness, but in the thrush's, though heard at 

 noon, there is the liquid coolness of things drawn 

 from the bottom of springs. The thrush's alone 

 declares the immortal wealth and vigour that is in 

 the forest. Here is a bird in whose strain the story 

 is told. Whenever a man hears it, he is young and 

 nature is in her spring ; whenever he hears it, there 

 is a new world and one country, and the gates of 

 heaven are not shut against him." 



The skylark is a favourite songster of Europe, 

 and many poets have sung his praises. He is es- 

 pecially loved for the bright philosophy which he 

 teaches. Every morning as the sun rises he 

 springs, singing exultantly, from his nest on the 



