48 WAKE-ROBIN 
take up the strain from almost the identical perch 
in less than ten minutes afterward. Later in the 
day, when I had penetrated the heart of the old 
Barkpeeling, I came suddenly upon one singing from 
a low stump, and for a wonder he did not seem 
alarmed, but lifted up his divine voice as if his 
privacy was undisturbed. I open his beak and find 
the inside yellow as gold. I was prepared to find 
it inlaid with pearls and diamonds, or to see an 
angel issue from it. 
He is not much in the books. Indeed, I am 
acquainted with scarcely any writer on ornithology 
whose head is not muddled on the subject of our 
three prevailing song-thrushes, confounding either 
their figures or their songs. A writer in the “ At- 
lantic’”’} gravely tells us the wood thrush is some- 
times called the hermit, and then, after describing 
the song of the hermit with great beauty and cor- 
rectness, coolly ascribes it to the veery! The new 
Cyclopedia, fresh from the study of Audubon, says 
the hermit’s song consists of a single plaintive note, 
and that the veery’s resembles that of the wood 
thrush! The hermit thrush may be easily identified 
by his color; his back being a clear olive-brown be- 
coming rufous on his rump and tail. A quill from 
his wing placed beside one from his tail on a dark 
ground presents quite a marked contrast. 
I walk along the old road, and note the tracks in 
the thin layer of mud. When do these creatures 
travel here? I have never yet chanced to meet 
1 For December, 1858. 
