In the summer of 1897, wandering in the woods of Pigeon Cove, on the
outer point of Cape Ann, the prolonged call of a bird often came to my
ears, which aroused my curiosity. I was not then much acquainted with
birds, but was beginning to "take notice" and usually carried my field
glass on my walks, and if I saw or heard a bird unfamiliar to me, tried
to look him up in my books. I had with me "Our Common Birds and How to
Know Them," by John B. Grant; also Florence Merriam's "Birds Through an
Opera Glass"--very good books to aid beginners in identifying birds.
The call of which I speak was so marked and so often repeated that I
eagerly searched for the bird, but could not get a glimpse of him, nor
even locate the sound accurately.
I soon perceived, however, that it was a regular chant, increasing in
an even crescendo, vibrating through the woods. I remembered reading
descriptions of such a call in the books, and soon found my bird to be
the oven-bird, golden-crowned thrush, or teacher bird.
But why "teacher" bird?
I was constantly asking this question, for to my ears the sound always
came as _ti-chee, ti-chee, ti-chee_, with accent always on the final
syllable. By no exercise of the imagination could I make it sound like
"teacher." Never during that summer nor during the two succeeding
summers have I heard these birds at Pigeon Cove say "teacher."
The little brown walker kept out of my sight very persistently
during that first summer, but in September, walking in the woods
near Star Lake in the Adirondacks, I had a good, near view of two
little olive-green birds walking on some low branches. Their white
speckled breasts proclaimed them thrushes, while the beautiful crown
of brownish orange inclosed in lines of black, plainly marked them the
"golden-crowned." Often as I have seen the bird since, his golden crown
has never appeared as conspicuous as it did on that September day by
the mountain lake. But I had to go to Skaneateles Lake in central New
York to hear him say "teacher." On a May morning in in 1899, sitting on
a mountain side overlooking this beautiful sheet of water, the chant
of a bird came vibrating through the woods to my ears, _teach-ah,
teach-ah, teach-ah, teach-ah, teach-ah_ very distinctly.
Accent clearly on the first syllable this time.