1892.
July 20
(No 2)
[margin]Clark's woods at sunset.[/margin]
Concord, Massachusetts.
Mass.
Concord.- woods this evening were particularly good
performers while one was preeminently fine. On the
other hand a bird singing in the hemlocks on the
opposite (eastern) side of the adjoining swamp had
a voice so effectually "veiled" that I was actually
unaware of his presence until I came nearly nuder the
tree in which he was sitting. Indeed the odd medley
of low, wheezy gasps, catarrhal squarks and clicks, and
thin, feeble whistles, not one note of which was either
musical or pleasing, was wholly inaudible at a distance
of fifty yards. It was not sotto voce singing. On the
contrary the poor bird was quite evidently exerting
himself to the utmost as if striving to outdo his
rivals in the woods across the swamp. Was he
conscious of the lamentable failure or, like certain
human singers equally devoid of musical ability, did
he delude himself with the belief that he was really
producing melodious sounds? It occurred to me that
possibly he might be deaf and like deaf mutes of
our own species incapable alike of appreciating or
correcting the painful discords of his voice.
Certainly the case was one of the most extreme
of its kind that has ever come under my notice.
[margin]Concert of√√[tick marks]
Wood Thrushes[/margin]
  Clark's woods evidently form about the center of
distribution of a colony of Wood Thrushes larger than
I have hitherto found in any part of Middlesex
County. I heard in all to-night no less than seven
singers and there are to my certain knowledge nearly
as many more to the east of the Estabrook road.
Indeed I have little doubt that upwards of twenty
could be heard in this region on a single evening by a