54 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



NOTES ON THE HERMIT THRUSH. 



%lli:lllllllllliilllll#UCH praised, as this bird certainly is and few of our 

 ^J Jr songbirds have been paid the tribute, either in verse 



^ 111 W or P rose > that i s accorded to the "gentle hermit of the 

 ^ J » dale," yet a great deal more may be said concerning 



^ ^ his shy, wildwood ways, and his beautiful voice, with- 



^ *a >a y out fear of filling too full the catalogue of his virtues. 

 ^m Bp And I make my excuse, if any is needed, the fact that 



# I| IIIIP I ilPIIPlllIPp I have seen him and heard him sing, in circumstances 

 which were to me most interesting, and which may have in them some- 

 thing new to many who take pleasure in watching our birds and listen- 

 ing to their songs. 



We were camping, my friend and I, in the mountains north of Kat- 

 ahdin Iron Works; spending the day trout-fishing in the swift waters of 

 the Pleasant River, and most of the night in sleep. On this particular 

 night we had finished supper just as the dusk was falling, and for a 

 long time we sat there quietly, not caring by word or motion to break 

 the strange, vocal silence of the deep woods. Over the hushy whisper 

 of the brook came the weird hoot of an owl, greeting the rising moon, 

 and just as the silver light was spreading softly over everything and 

 sifting down through the trees in little bright patches that made the 

 shadows still more dark, burst from the depths of the wood the rich 

 sweet prelude of the hermit's song. Many times before I had heard 

 the song, but never like this. It was all as mysterious and unreal as a 

 vision of fairyland, yet the wonderful sweetness of that voice swelling 

 up out of the woods left an impression that I can never lose. For a 

 long time we sat and listened, unwilling to miss a single note, but at 

 last the weariness which comes from following all day the hard course 

 of a tumbling mountain stream got the better of us and we went to 

 sleep on our bed of spicy fir, and left the bird still filling the forest 

 spaces with the happiness which was too much for his little soul to 

 hold. At midnight I awoke, and as I lay for a moment listening to 

 the soft woody sounds, again broke forth the untiring song. At four 

 in the morning we were both awake for the day, and as we bestirred 

 ourselves in preparations for an early breakfast, the Hermit sang his 

 morning hymn, the lively little Winter Wren playing a rippling, running 

 accompaniment. 



Once more in that same summer I heard the Hermit Thrush under 

 singularly favorable circumstances. A party of us were climbing one 

 of the steep rocky mountains of Mt. Desert Island, Maine, and had 

 stopped for a moment to rest on the favoring shoulder of a ledge. We 

 were above the wood line, and had left, as we thought, all the birds 



