us
voice, so that the young student is pretty sure to find it a matter of
some difficulty to tell them apart. Yet there are differences of
coloration which may be trusted as constant, and to which, after a
while, the eye becomes habituated; and, at the same time, each species
has a song and call-notes peculiar to itself. One cannot help wishing,
indeed, that he might hear the five singing by turns in the same wood.
Then he could fix the distinguishing peculiarities of the different
songs in his mind so as never to confuse them again. But this is more
than can be hoped for; the listener must be content with hearing two,
or at the most three, of the species singing together, and trust his
memory to make the necessary comparison.

The song of the wood thrush is perhaps the most easily set apart from
the rest, because of its greater compass of voice and bravery of
execution. The Wilson's song, as you hear it by itself, seems so
perfectly characteristic that you fancy you can never mistake any other
for it; and yet, if you are in northern New England only a week
afterwards, you may possibly hear a Swainson (especially if he happens
to be one of the best singers of his species, and, more especially
still, if he happens to be at just the right distance away), who you
will say, at first thought, is surely a Wilson. The difficulty of
distinguishing the voices is naturally greatest in the spring, when they
have not been heard for eight or nine months. Here, as elsewhere, the
student must be willing to learn the same lesson over and over, letting
patience have her perfect work. That the five songs are really
distinguishable is well illustrated by the fact (which I have before
mentioned), that the presence of the Alice thrush in New England during
the breeding season was announced as probable by myself, simply on the
strength of a song which I had heard in the White Mountains, and which,
as I believed, must be his, notwithstanding I was entirely unacquainted
with it, and though all our books affirmed that the Alice thrush was not
a summer resident of any part of the United States.

It is worth remarking, also, in this connection, that the _Hylocichlae_
differ more decidedly in their notes of alarm than in their songs. The
wood thrush's call is extremely sharp and brusque, and is usually fired
off in a little volley; that of the Wilson is a sort of whine, or snarl,
in distressing contrast with his song; the hermit's is a quick, _so