ve met the gray-cheeked thrush in the woods, and
held him in my hand; still I do not know him. The silence of the
cedar-bird throws a mystery about him which neither his good looks nor
his petty larcenies in cheery time can dispel. A bird's song contains
a clew to its life, and establishes a sympathy, an understanding,
between itself and the listener.

I descend a steep hill, and approach the hemlocks through a large
sugar-bush. When twenty rods distant, I hear all along the line of the
forest the incessant warble of the red-eyed vireo, cheerful and happy
as the merry whistle of a schoolboy. He is one of our most common and
widely distributed birds. Approach any forest at any hour of the day,
in any kind of weather, from May to August, in any of the Middle or
Eastern districts, and the chances are that the first note you hear
will be his. Rain or shine, before noon or after, in the deep forest
or in the village grove,--when it is too hot for the thrushes or too
cold and windy for the warblers,--it is never out of time or place
for this little minstrel to indulge his cheerful strain. In the deep
wilds of the Adirondacks, where few birds are seen and fewer heard,
his note was almost constantly in my ear. Always busy, making it a
point never to suspend for one moment his occupation to indulge his
musical taste, his lay is that of industry and contentment. There is
nothing plaintive or especially musical in his performance, but the
sentiment expressed is eminently that of cheerfulness. Indeed, the
songs of most birds have some human significance, which, I think, is
the source of the delight we take in them. The song of the bobolink to
me expresses hilarity; the song sparrow's, faith; the bluebird's,
love; the catbird's, pride; the white-eyed flycatcher's,
self-consciousness; that of the hermit thrush spiritual serenity:
while there is something military in the call of the robin.

The red-eye is classed among the flycatchers by some writers, but is
much more of a worm-eater, and has few of the traits or habits of the
Muscicapa or the true Sylvia. He resembles somewhat the warbling
vireo, and the two birds are often confounded by careless observers.
Both warble in the same cheerful strain, but the latter more
continuously and rapidly. The red-eye is a larger, slimmer bird, with
a faint bluish crown, and a light line over the eye. His movements are
peculiar. You may see him hopping among the limbs, exploring then
under side