18 SOME CANADIAN BIRDS. 



or five bars of triplets," but is quite long for a bird's song, ten to 

 twelve bars ; and instead of ending with loud notes the final a 

 rendered in the merest whisper. The song begins with low soft 

 notes and gradually increases in volume and pitch, and then rather 

 abruptly changes to the softer tones again, and grr dually fades 

 into silence. It is little wonder that the entire song has been 

 seldom heard, for the listener must be very close to catch all its 

 notes, and as the singer resents intrusion while at his devotions, 

 detection in the effort to steal upon him often ends in failure to 

 hear his song. 



To 'tear the hermit at his best you must creep unseen into the 

 grove which is at once his home and his sanctuary, where you will 

 find him hidden amid the foliage, and close to where his mate is 

 sitting upon the nest, for he sings for her ear and not for yours. 

 It may be mere fancy, but I have a preference for his evening song. 

 I think the morning song is rendered with a trifle more brilliancy of 

 expression, but the twilight hour brings to the hermit his deepest 

 inspiration, and it is then he sings his tenderest, sweetest notes. 



I kept a male in captivity for nearly two years, and though he 

 refused to be thoroughly tamed, he grew somewhat friendly and 

 seemed pleased when I entered the room, providing I kept at a 

 proper distance. He sang all through the winter months — would 

 sing to me when I whistled — but the song was a sad parody on that 

 which he sang to his mate when he was free. 



Just why such terms as *' hermit," " anchorite," and " recluse " 

 have been applied to this thrush is not clear, for the bird is no 

 recluse, not more so than any woodland species, nor indeed so 

 much as many others. He prefers the grovoa to the gardens, but I 

 have counted some thirty within an area of about a hundred yards 

 square, and I remember being awakened early one morning by a 

 chorus that must have numbered a hundred voices. 



The colors of the hermit are of the typical hylocichla hues. The 

 head, back and wings are an olive-tinted russet, and the tail is 

 of rufous tint. The breast is silver- white, spotted with arrow-head 

 marks of an olive tint. The autumn plumage is slightly different ; 

 after the moult the olive tints are wanting, and the upper parts 

 become a dull russet brown. The breast at that season is of cream 

 color, though the markings are not changed. I have compared 



