A YEAR WITH THE BIRDS 58 1 
Nest: Built either upon or near the ground, of sticks and twigs like 
that of the Wood Thrush, but lacking the mud. 
Eggs: Like Robin and Wood Thrush, of a greenish blue, but smaller 
than either. 
The Veery, the most slender and graceful of the Thrushes, 
is with us all the season, but it is so shy and elusive in its 
ways of slipping through the trees and underbrush in 
swampy woodlands that it seems scarcely an actual pres- 
ence. Change a word in Wordsworth’s verses on the Cuckoo 
and the description is perfect : 
“O Veery! shall I call thee bird, 
Or but a wandering voice?” 
When it first arrives, and before mating, the Veery is seen 
frequently in the garden, prying under dead leaves and in low 
bushes like all its insect-eating kin, but when it retires to the 
woods to nest all but the voice seems to vanish. That wonder- 
ful, haunting voice ! It was a woodland mystery to me not so 
very long ago; a vocal Will-o’-the-Wisp. Leading on and 
on, up and down river banks, into wild grape tangles and cling- 
ing brush, then suddenly ceasing and leaving me to return as 
best I might. 
Though the Veery sings in the morning chorus, and at in- 
tervals during the day, it is at twilight that we love best to hear 
him. 
On a broken branch of a towering pine 
Sits a small brown bird of modest mien. 
The sunlit red from the western sky 
Comes aslant the vine-clad trunk between. 
Even the Catbird’s song is stilled, 
The scent from the meadow is cool and damp, 
The van of the army of darkness comes 
Into the forest and pitches camp. 
At once there follows a song so fine, 
So mellowed by distance, yet wondrous near. 
At first we’re doubtful if it be him — 
So tender and muffled, so ringing and clear. 
Chiming and trilling and answered afar, 
Simple but bearing some mystic good; 
For listen, the silence it does not mar, 
Though filling each nook of the echoing wood. 
— From “ Wilson’s Thrush,” by W. G. Barton 
