2 28 IN BIRD LAND. 



the species, however, could not be determined at 

 the time for lack of my opera-glass, as the bird was 

 perched rather high in a tree. In the brief time at 

 my disposal just then, I saw a number of other 

 birds, and resolved to spend a day on the mountain 

 studying them, as soon as other duties would permit. 



That day came in good time. An early morning 

 hour found me skirting the steep sides of the moun- 

 tain, alert for feathered dwellers. It was the tenth 

 of July, too late for the best songs and for finding 

 birds in the nest, and yet I felt fairly well satisfied 

 with the results of the day's excursion. Presently 

 the song of the thrush, whose identity I had come 

 to settle, was heard in the copse. A look at him 

 with my glass proved him to be the veery, or Wilson's 

 thrush, only a migrant in my State, and one that 

 pursues his pilgrimage both to the north and south 

 in patience-trying silence. 



To my ear the song was sweet, almost hauntingly 

 so. Some notes were quite like certain strains of 

 the wood-thrush's rich song, but others seemed more 

 ringing and bell-like, and the whole tune was more 

 skilfully and smoothly rendered, — that is, with less 

 labored effort. Still, I am loath to say that the 

 general effect of this bird's song is more pleasing 

 than that of the wood-thrush, for there is something 

 far-away and dreamy about the minstrelsy of the 

 latter that one does not hear in the song of any 

 other species. 



The veeries evidently had nests or younglings 

 among the bushes, for they called in harsh, alarmed 



