Page:Birdcraft-1897.djvu/104

 ;Breeds:
 * From mountainous parts of southern New York and New England northward.


 * Nest and Eggs:
 * Similar to those of the Veery.


 * Range:
 * Eastern North America, wintering from the Northern States southward.

Burroughs says: "If we take the quality of melody as a test, the Wood Thrush, the Hermit Thrush, and the Veery Thrush stand at the head of our list of songsters." One may be very familiar with the songs of two of this trio without ever having identified the third, or at least without having heard it sing.

At the first glance the Hermit closely resembles the Wood Thrush, but a good field-glass will enable you to see the colour distinction of the back, and also that the Hermit has a more yellowish throat and that the breast spots are more acute. Its rarity differs very much according to location. It is comparatively common in the northeast, and Dr. Warren says that in Pennsylvania it is, with the exception of the Robin, the commonest of the Thrushes and breeds occasionally in some of the higher mountain districts. Here, as well as in many of the Middle States, where it is only a migrant, its full song is seldom heard. I have not found it a shy bird, not more so than the Wood Thrush, but it doubtless becomes shy in its breeding-haunts.

I made its acquaintance, several years ago, in the lane back of the garden, and had watched its rapid, nervous motions during many migrations before I heard it sing. This spring, the first week in May, when standing at the window about six o'clock in the morning, I heard an unusual note, and listened, thinking it at first a Wood Thrush and then a Thrasher, but soon finding that it was neither of these I opened the window softly and looked among the nearby shrubs, with my glass. The wonderful melody ascended gradually in the scale as it progressed, now trilling, now legato, the most perfect, exalted, unrestrained, yet withal, finished bird song that I ever heard. At the final note I caught sight of the singer perching among the lower sprays of a dogwood tree. I could see him perfectly: it was the Hermit Thrush! In a moment he began again. I have