THE WOOD THRUSH 



It is difficult to speak without enthusiasm of the song of a 

 Thrush. He seems wholly to outclass all other birds. When a 

 Rose-breasted Grosbeak, no mean singer as our birds go, has finished 

 his song, let a Wood Thrush utter but a phrase of his strain, and 

 the Grosbeak's warble seems commonplace. Except the Thrushes, 

 we have few birds whose song appeals to the imagination as human 

 music does. We listen curiously to the songs of the others, criticise 

 them or comment on them, as we do on a landscape; but let a 

 Thrush sing and we fall into a reverie, recalling sad, tender, or 

 solemn ideas and associations. 



The Wood Thrush and the Veery, or Wilson's Thrush, are the 

 common Thrushes of all but the northern part of the Northern 

 States. In the mountains, the Hermit Thrush is found. This bird 

 is generally considered superior even to the Wood Thrush in the 

 purity and solemnity of its cadences. It has one great advantage 

 over its rival; it sings on mountain sides in clear, still air, so that 

 the finest vibrations of its voice come to the ear with perfect dis- 

 tinctness. The song of the two Thrushes is readily distinguished 

 by listening for the phrase ee-o-lee', with which the Wood Thrush 

 regularly opens his chant. The Veery has received its name in 

 imitation of its song, which resembles the syllables vefury, vefury, 

 vefrury, each phrase lower in the scale than the preceding. 



The Wood Thrush arrives in the Northern States in May, 

 and unlike the Veery, which is strangely silent on its first arrival, 



the male Wood Thrush announces his presence on the morning of 



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