VEERY: WILSON’S IT HRUSH. 
Turdus fuscescéns STEPH. 
Puate I. Fic. 4 
With dreamy delight I think of thee, 
For thou doest swell my bosom with glee 
When the gloom of evening falleth; 
And even now ’mong the leafy trees, 
When thy sweet inspiration doth rise on the breeze, 
Its beauty my being inthralleth. 
FRISCH. 
J] UNE is really the spring month in the northern part of our Union. Only during this 
3} month do Flora’s children come forth in full beauty, and it is not till then that 
bird-life is at its best. Every songster, even the most delicate, has returned home from 
the tropical winter quarters; all sing in jubilation, almost all of them breed.— During 
the silent evening twilight we are sitting in the woods on one of those prostrate forest 
monarchs that on all sides press the ground with their moss-grown flanks. A myste- 
rious silence, a serene peace hangs over this northern forest. The sweet fragrance of 
many blossoming trees and shrubs fills the air. Delicate anemones, wintergreen, various 
ericaceous plants, ferns, the blood-root and terrestrial orchids, arrest our attention. 
Through the clearings the evening chimes of the returning herds fall on the ear. From 
the distance comes the mournful and yet enchanting song of our beautiful Rose-breasted 
Grosbeak. Suddenly, unexpected, from our immediate neighborhood, sounds a beautiful 
melting song—at first soft, continuous—then ever louder, happier, more glowing, tri- 
umphant. Every note is bursting with entrancing euphony! No weariness falls on us 
as we listen to the wondrous chorister, but the quickly deepening darkness and the loud 
call of the Whippoorwill warn us to depart. We hear the glorious song from all sides 
now for the one songster has made rivals of many. This musician, often mistaken for 
the Wood Thrush by lovers of nature, is the VEERY, or WILSON’s THRUSH. 
In many parts of the northern States this species is much commoner than the 
Wood Thrush and is therefore in many places a well-known and familiar bird. This is 
well indicated by its popular names. It is commonly called VEERY or CHEEURY from 
its call-note. The reddish brown color of its upper part has given it the name Tawny 
THRUSH, and on account of its song it is called the NicHTINGALE. The ornithologist 
calls it WiLson’s THrusH after Alexander Wilson, the father of American ornithology. 
In Wisconsin and Michigan, of the smaller species only the Wood Thrush and Hermit 
are known to any extent. It seems that the Veery and Wood Thrush are confounded 
1 Anemone nemorosa. 
