g of the Veery consists of five distinct strains or bars. They might,
perhaps, be represented on the musical staff, by commencing the first
note on D above the staff and sliding down with a trill to C, one fifth
below. The second, third, fourth, and fifth bars are repetitions of the
first, except that each commences and ends a few tones lower than the
preceding.

Were we to attempt to perform these notes with an instrument adapted to
the purpose, we should probably fail, from the difficulty of imitating
the peculiar trilling of the notes, and the liquid ventriloquial sounds
at the conclusion of each strain. The whole is warbled in such a manner
as to produce upon the ear the effect of harmony. It seems as if we
heard two or three concordant notes at the same moment. I have never
noticed this effect in the song of any other bird. I should judge that
it might be produced by the rapid descent from the commencing note of
each strain to the last note about a fourth or fifth below, the latter
being heard simultaneously with the reverberation of the first note.

Another remarkable quality of the song is a union of brilliancy and
plaintiveness. The first effect is produced by the commencing notes of
each strain, which are sudden and on a high key; the second, by the
graceful chromatic slide to the termination, which is inimitable and
exceedingly solemn. I have sometimes thought that a part of the
delightful influence of these notes might be attributable to the
cloistered situations from which they were delivered. But I have
occasionally heard them while the bird was singing from a tree in an
open field, when they were equally pleasing and impressive. I am not
peculiar in my admiration of this little songster. I have observed that
people who are strangers to the woods, and to the notes of birds, are
always attracted by the song of the Veery.

In my early days, when I was at school, I boarded in a house near a
grove that was vocal with these Thrushes; and it was then I learned to
love their song more than any other sound in Nature, and above the
finest strains of artificial music. Since that time I have lived in
town, apart from their sylvan retreats, which I have visited only during
my hours of leisure; but I have seldom failed, each returning year, to
make frequent visits to the wood to listen to their notes, which cause
full half the pleasure I derive from a summer-evening walk. If in any
year I fail to hear the song of the