“How many of you know the _Wood Thrush_, or, if you do not know his
name, can recognize him by aid of these verses?”
“I know it,” answered little Clary; “I know his colour and the way his
song tinkles, but up at our house we call him Song Thrush. Why, Gray
Lady, he doesn’t live in the woods; we haven’t any woods. He stays right
around the garden and orchard, and last summer they made a nest in the
crotch of a sugar-maple so low that I could see into it by standing on
the fence. It looked just like Robin’s nest, and it had some rags woven
into it, and the eggs are like the Robin’s, too.
“Mother said that I mustn’t watch too long, or they might not come back
next year, but that if we didn’t bother them, they might come back, and
the children, too, and bring their wives.
“This pair seemed real tame; they used to hop all round on the grass
where the clothes dry, and they drank out of Roy’s dish. He’s a Collie
dog, you know, and they don’t bother birds at all the way bird-dogs will
sometimes.
“The Thrushes did eat some strawberries and currants, but mother said to
credit those to company, for they pleasured her when she sat sewing on
the porch of afternoons more than all the company she ever had to tea,
for they had to have sugar and cream on their berries, and left plates
and spoons to wash up, and the Thrushes cleared up after themselves and
gave a concert every night.
“You know, Gray Lady, it isn’t nice to have company and not give them
any lunch, so mother says if you have nice garden birds, why should you
expect more of them than of folks?”
[Illustration: E. Van Alterna, Photo. WOOD THRUSH AND NEST]
“Why, indeed,” said Gray Lady. “I will go and see your mother and ask
her to come to Birdland. A mother in a community who thinks as she does
is better than half a dozen bird wardens.”
“I know that bird, too,” said Dave, “but on the hill where I live he
stays in the river woods and only comes out to the lane edge to get wild
cherries and blackcaps and shadberries. We call it Wood Robin, ’cause
it’s shaped like a Robin and runs on the ground like one, only it’s
different in colour. Do you suppose they are the same bird? Or are there
two that seem alike, like the Nighthawk and Whip-poor-will?”
“Wood Thrush, Song Thrush, Wood Robin, are all one; the shy bird of
river woods or the lovely musician of gardens and home grounds, where
they are protected and dogs reign instead of cats. This place is vocal
with them all through May, June, and well into July. Not only Birdland
and the orchard, but the garden and trees on the lawn.
“One afternoon last June, when Goldilocks lay in her hammock under the
spruces, four were singing where I could see all at once,—and oh, that
song! As the bird sits in a tree-top with head thrown back and pours it
forth,
‘the song of the Wood Thrush is one of the finest specimens of
bird music that America can produce. Among all the bird songs I
have ever heard, it is second only in quality to that of the
Hermit Thrush. Its tones are solemn and serene. They seem to
harmonize with the sounds of the forest, the whispering breeze,
the purling water, or the falling of raindrops in the summer
woods.’
—E. H. Forbush.
* * * * *
“This Thrush has a sharp alarm note, ‘Pit! Pit!’ and a sort of whistle
that he seems to use as a signal. Fruit he does eat at times, but he has
as long a list of evil insects to his credit as the Robin himself.
Unfortunately, owing to his size and plumpness, southern vandals shoot
him in the fall and winter. Fancy silencing his heavenly voice for a
pitiful mouthful of meat.
“There is another Thrush that lives in your river woods, Dave, smaller
than the Wood Thrushes, tawny of back, and a buffy breast with faint
arrow-shaped spots upon it, the Wilson’s Thrush, or Veery. It has not so
long and varied a song as either the Wood Thrush or the more northern
Hermit Thrush, is really but an echo song, wonderfully pure and
spiritual in quality. One of the Wise Men gives in syllables this
‘Ta-weel-ah-ta-weel-ah,’ pronounced in whispering head tones, and then
repeated a third lower, ending with the twang of a stringed instrument.
“At evening and until quite late into the night these birds echo
themselves and each other. It is not a song to hear amid laughter and
talking, but for the heart that is alone, even if not lonely. To at
least one of our poets, he who best interprets the song-life of birds,
it rivals the famous English Nightingale.
“Aside from its musical value, the Veery, feeding as it does almost
altogether on insects, has a practical side as a neighbour. It also has
a most penetrating call-note, a ‘Whew! Whew!’ heard after the song is
over, that is at once resentful, critical, and challenging, as if
questioning your right to be in its woodland retreat in the nesting
time, and condemning your persistence. Many people, who do not know the
bird by sight, know both its echo song and its note of alarm and
challenge.