62 
BIRDS 
logists, Wilson and Audubon, are lavish 
in their praises of the former, but have 
little or nothing to say of the song of the 
latter. Audubon says it is sometimes 
agreeable, but evidently has never heard 
it. Nuttall, I am glad to find, is more 
discriminating, and does the bird fuller 
justice. Professor Baird, of the Smith¬ 
sonian Institution, a more recent author¬ 
ity, and an excellent observer, tells me 
he regards it as pre-eminently our finest 
songster. 
It is quite a rare bird, of very shy and 
secluded habits, being found in the Mid¬ 
dle and Eastern States, during the period 
of song, only in the deepest and most 
remote forests, usually in damp and 
swampy localities. On this account the 
people in the Adirondack region call it 
the “Swamp Angel/’ Its being so much 
of a recluse accounts for the comparative 
ignorance that prevails in regard to it. 
The cast of its song is so much like that 
of the Wood-Thrush, that an enthusiastic 
admirer of the latter bird, as all admir¬ 
ers are, would be quite apt to mistake it 
for the strain of nis favorite, observing 
