Blue-Bird, and resembles the Red Thrush, except that the brown of his
back is slightly tinged with olive. He arrives early in May, and is
first heard to sing during some part of the second week of that month,
when the sons of the Bobolink commences. He is not one of our familiar
birds; and unless we live in close proximity to a wood that is haunted
by a stream, we shall never hear his voice from our doors or windows. He
sings neither in the orchard, nor the garden, nor in the suburbs of the
city. He shuns the exhibitions of art, and reserves his wild notes for
those who frequent the inner sanctuary of the groves. All who have once
become familiar with his song await his arrival with impatience, and
take note of his silence in midsummer with regret. Until this little
bird has arrived, I always feel as an audience do at a concert, before
the chief singer has made her appearance, while the other performers are
vainly endeavoring to soothe them by their inferior attempts.

This bird is more retiring than any other important singing-bird, except
the Wood-Thrush,--being heard only in solitary groves, and usually in
the vicinity of a pond or stream. Here, especially after sunset, he
pours forth his brilliant and melancholy strains with a peculiar
cadence, and fills the whole forest with sound. It seems as if the
echoes were delimited with his notes, and took pleasure in passing them
round with multiplied reverberations. I am confident this bird refrains
from singing when others are the most vocal, from the pleasure he feels
in listening either to his own notes, or to the melodious responses
which others of his own kindred repeat in different parts of the wood.
Hence he chooses the dusk of evening for his vocal hour, when the little
chirping birds are mostly silent, that their voices may not interrupt
his chant. At this hour, during a period of nine or ten weeks, he charms
the evening with his strains, and often prolongs them in still weather
till after dusk, and whispers them sweetly into the ear of night.

No bird of his size has more strength of voice; but his song, though
loud, is modulated with such a sweet and flowing cadence, that it comes
to the ear with all the mellowness of the softest warbling. It would be
difficult to describe his song. It seems at first to be wanting in
variety. I was long of this opinion, though I was puzzled to account for
its pleasing and extraordinary effect on the mind of the listener. The
son