The Hermit Thrushes 
Hermit has missed the 
choicest thing which Na¬ 
ture in California has to 
offer. He who, having 
listened to that song, 
does not feel a respon¬ 
sive glow and a quicken¬ 
ing of the spirit, has need 
of more than Nature’s 
ministries. He needs 
most to find his God and 
to have his sins forgiven. 
It is not alone for 
the lofty associations of 
Alpine meadow and Sier- 
ran grove that we prize 
the bird, though such 
choice of setting were 
gratifying evidence of a 
poetic nature. It is not 
for any marked vivaci¬ 
ty, or personal charm of 
the singer that we praise 
his song; the bird is gen¬ 
tle, shy, and unassum¬ 
ing, and it is only rarely 
that one may even see 
him. It is not that he excels in technique such conscious artists as the 
Catbird, the Thrasher, and the otherwise matchless Mockingbird; the 
mere comparison is odious. The song of the Hermit Thrush is a thing 
apart. It is sacred music, not secular. Having nothing of the dash and 
abandon of W ren or Ouzel, least of all the sportive mockery of the Western 
Chat, it is the pure offering of a shriven soul, holding acceptable converse 
with high heaven. No voice of solemn-pealing organ or cathedral choir 
at vespers ever hymns the parting day more fittingly than this appointed 
chorister of the eternal hills. Mounted on the chancel of some low- 
crowned fir tree, the bird looks calmly at the setting sun, and slowly 
phrases his worship in such dulcet tones, exalted, pure, serene, as must 
haunt the corridors of memory forever after. 
The associations of timberline, otherwise delectable, are unalterably 
hallowed by the recollection of that shy, modest presence and that voice 
“all breathing human passion far above.” And although I have dwelt 
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