The Russet-backed Thrushes 
woods. I am persuaded that the weeloo weelo weeloeee of this bird, heard 
ecstatically in the overarched twilight, would be inglorious coming from 
the top of a fence-post in the full glare of day. Nuttall represented the 
song as “wit-wit, t'vimia-t'villia" ; and a northern observer has left “Ilolsey, 
govendy govindy goveendy ” as his contribution. Where doctors disagree 
so radically, we may please ourselves. The minor notes are, fortunately, 
more distinctive, as well as more frequent, and by these we may trace the 
bird’s every movement without recourse to sight. Quit, or hwit, is a soft 
whistled note of inquiry and greeting, by which the birds keep in constant 
touch with each other, and which they are nowise disinclined to use in 
conversations with strangers. At the friendly call, the Thrush comes 
sidling over toward you through the brush, until you feel that you could 
put your hand on it if you would; but the bird remains invisible, and says, 
quit, quit, with some asperity, if you disregard the convenances. 
A longer call-note, of sharper quality, queee, may be as readily imi¬ 
tated, although its meaning in the bush is uncertain. The bird has also 
a spoken note, a sort of happy purring, which I call the coordaddy cry. 
In this the daddy notes are given in from one to six syllables, and are 
spoken “trippingly on the tongue.” 
Recalling again the queee note, we are surprised to find that it is the 
commonest sound heard during migrations. At midnight when a solemn 
hush is over all besides, this weird note comes down from the sky at any 
height, from every angle, a greeting en passant from the voyageurs, the 
tenderest, the most pathetic, the most mysterious voice of Nature. There 
are a dozen variations of pitch and tone, queee, quee, kooo, etc., but the 
theme is one, and the quality is that of the Russet-backed Thrush. 
Now while it is almost incredible that any one species should so abound 
to the exclusion of all others, or that one alone should speak while others 
flit by silently, it is more incredible that there should be a language, or 
even a call-note, used in common by different species of migrants. 1 We 
must conclude, therefore, that the Russet-backed Thrushes (and their 
compeers, the Olive-backs, further East) are a long time passing, and 
that their aggregate numbers are prodigious. 
Much, also, of the apparent difference in the call-notes of these night 
birds is explained when it is remembered that they are reaching us from 
different angles. Thus, the quee of a rapidly approaching bird is raised 
sharply and shortened, quee; while the same voice, in passing, falls to a 
ghostly kwoo, at least a musical third below. It is, perhaps, needless to 
add that practiced lips may join this mystic chorus and hold delightful 
1 The author has himself advanced this theory (see “ Birds of Washington,” p. 233), but now abandons it as lack 
ing either evidence or probability. 
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