MY PET WOOD THRUSHES. 
195 
by the effect wliich it produces on tlie mind. I do not know- 
to what instrumental sounds I can compare these notes, tor 
I really know of none so melodious and harmonical. They 
gradually rise in strength, and then fall m gentle cadences, 
becoming at length so low as to be scarcely audible : like the 
emotions of the lover, who at one moment exults in the hope 
of possessing the object of his affections, and the next pauses 
in suspense, doubtful of the results of all his efforts to please. 
Several of these birds seem to challenge each other from 
different portions of the forest, particularly towards evening, 
and at that time nearly all the other songsters being about to 
retire to rest, the notes of the Wood Thrush are doubly pleas- 
ing. One w^ould think that each indi vidual is anxious to ex- 
cel his distant rival, and I have frequently thought that on 
such occasions their music is more than ordinarily effective, 
as it then exhibits a degree of skilful modulation quite be- 
yond my power to describe. These concerts are continued 
for some time after sunset, and take place in the month of 
June, when the females are setting." 
The Wood Thrush is seldom visible while it sings, and it 
is partly owing to this modest shrinking from the common 
gaze that few identify the bird with the song, and then it 
seems so entirely the voice of the place^ — -the very language 
of Shadow and the Wood — that men are scarcely conscious 
they do not expect it to be a living thing, or look to find a 
bird more than they wotdd think to search the clear rivulet 
lapsing by, for some embodiment of murmurs. As with 
Shelley's Sky-Lark, so is our Wood Thrush, 
" Like a poet hidden 
In the light of thouglit, 
Singing songs unbidden, 
'Till the world is wroiiglit 
To S3^mpathy with hopes and fears it heeded not." 
Were we an imaginative race, this mellow and mysterious 
music would be the inspiration of many a charming myth ; 
