his graceful form on
the fence, until the silver tabby, seeming to regard their calls as
intrusions, took up his station on the cats' highway and I saw the birds
no more.

IN THE BIRD-ROOM.

XII.

THE SOLITAIRE.

Give sunlight for the lark and robin,
Sun and sky, and mead and bloom;
But give for this rare throat to throb in,
And this lonesome soul to sob in,
Wildwoods with their green and gloom.

COATES KINNEY.

For three years there lived in my house one of the remarkable birds
described in their native land as "invisible, mysterious birds with the
heavenly song." I have hesitated to write of him, because I feel unable
to do justice either to himself or to his musical abilities; and,
moreover, I am certain that what I must say will appear extravagant. Yet
when I find grave scientific books indulging in a mild rapture over him;
when learned travelers, unsuspected of sentimentality or exaggeration,
rave over him; when the literary man, studying the customs, the history,
and the government of a nation, goes out of his way to eulogize the song
of this bird, I take heart, and dare try to tell of the wonderful song
and the life no less noble and beautiful.

Among eight or ten American birds of as many kinds, the solitaire, or,
as he is called, the clarin, reminds one of a person of high degree
among the common herd. This may sound absurd; but such is the reserve of
his manner, the dignity of his bearing, the mystery of his utterances,
and the unapproachable beauty of his song, that the comparison is
irresistible. The mockingbird is a joyous, rollicking, marvelous
songster; the wood thrush moves the very soul with his ecstatic notes;
the clarin equals the latter in quality, with a much larger variety. He
is an artist of the highest order; he is "God's poet," if any bird
deserves the name; he strikes the listener dumb, and transports him with
delight.

The solitaires, _Myadestes_, or fly-catching thrushes, are natives of
the West Indies and Mexico, with one branch in the Rocky Mountains. My
bird was _M. obscurus_, and came from Mexico. I found him in a New York
bird-store, where he looked about as much at home among the shrieking
and singing mob of parrots and canaries as a poet among a howling rabble
of the "great unwashed."

[Sidenote: _NO DESIRE TO LIVE._]

Upon a casual glance he might be mistaken for a catbird, being about his
size, with plumage of the same shade of dark slate