yet though it is indeed a notable and admirable
singer, it is an exaggeration to call it unequaled. In melody, and
above all in that finer, higher melody where the chords vibrate with
the touch of eternal sorrow, it cannot rank with such singers as the
wood-thrush and the hermit-thrush. The serene ethereal beauty of the
hermit's song, rising and falling through the still evening, under the
archways of hoary mountain forests that have endured from time
everlasting; the golden, leisurely chiming of the wood-thrush,
sounding on June afternoons, stanza by stanza, through the
sun-flecked groves of tall hickories, oaks, and chestnuts; with these
there is nothing in the nightingale's song to compare. But in volume
and continuity, in tuneful, voluble, rapid outpouring and ardor, above
all in skillful and intricate variation of theme, its song far
surpasses that of either of the thrushes. In all these respects it is
more just to compare it with the mocking-bird's, which, as a rule,
likewise falls short precisely on those points where the songs of the
two thrushes excel."

In his "Pastimes of an American Hunter" he says: "It is an
incalculable added pleasure to any one's sense of happiness if he or
she grows to know, even slightly and imperfectly, how to read and
enjoy the wonder-book of nature. All hunters should be nature-lovers.
It is to be hoped that the days of mere wasteful, boastful slaughter
are past, and that from now on the hunter will stand foremost in
working for the preservation and perpetuation of the wild life,
whether big or little." Surely this man is the rarest kind of a
sportsman.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Camping & Tramping with Roosevelt, by
John Burroughs

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