286 
The Wood Thrush 
Heavenly 
Music 
‘‘In Useful Birds and Their Protection,” Mr. E. H. Forbush has 
written: “The song of the Wood Thrush is one of the finest specimens 
of bird music that America can produce. Among all the bird songs 
that I have heard it is second only in quality to that 
of the Hermit Thrush. It is not projected upon the 
still air with the effort that characterizes the bold and 
vigorous lay of the Robin, or the loud and intermittent carol of the 
Thrasher. Its tones are solemn and serene. They seem to harmonke 
with the sounds of the forest, the whispering breeze, the purling water, 
or the falling of rain-drops in the woods. As with most other birds, 
there is a great difference in the excellence of individual performers, 
and, while some males of the species can produce such notes as few 
birds can rival, this cannot be said of all. At evening the bird usually 
mounts to the higher branches of the taller trees, often upon the edge 
of the forest, where nothing intervenes to confine or subdue his ‘heavenly 
music.’ There, sitting quite erect, he emits his wonderful notes in the 
most leisurely fashion, and apparently with little effort. A-olle, he sings 
and rests ; then, unhurried, pours forth a series of intermittent strains, 
which seem to express in music the sentiment of nature ; powerful, rich 
metallic, with the vanishing vibratory tones of the bell, they seem like 
a vocal expression of the mystery of the universe, clothed in a melody 
so pure and etheral that the soul, still bound to its earthly tenement, can 
neither imitate nor describe it. The song rises and falls, swells and dies 
away, until dark night has fallen. The alarm note of the bird is sharp 
pit, pit, several times repeated; this alarm often rises to a long roll. 
A soft cluck, also repeated, is sometimes heard. A mellow, rather 
liquid, chirp is another common note.” 
The Wood Thrush is not among the early feathered arrivals in spring. 
In fact, we do not see it until the new leaves are well started, and warm 
weather has advanced sufficiently to render improbable the recurrence of 
one of those backward blasts of winter which so often 
In Spring occur in early spring. It is during the last ten days of 
April that we usually find the first Wood Thrush in 
the latitude of New York. Within a few days after his song is heard 
ringing through the woodlands, practically all the Wood Thrush delega- 
tion arrives. Love-making shortly begins, and full complements of eggs 
may be looked for within three weeks. 
The building of a nest to suit the taste of a pair of Wood Thrushes 
involves no small amount of labor. Although the birds feed on the 
ground, and spend much of their time running or hopping about in the 
grass or among the fallen leaves, they do not regard this as a good place 
for their eggs and young. 
Up in a small tree, from six to ten feet above the earth, they choose 
their nesting-site. The fork of an upright limb, or where the main 
stem of a sapling divides, is looked upon as a choice situation. Here large 
dead leaves, and sometimes pieces of paper, are brought, and these, held 
