I feel considerable reluctance in approaching the subject of my small thrushes. None but a poet should speak of them—so beautiful, so enchanting in song. Yet I cannot bear to let their lovely lives pass in silence; therefore if they must needs remain unsung, they shall at least be chronicled. There were two: one the gray-cheeked thrush, the other the veery or Wilson's, and they passed a year in my house, filling it with a marvelous rippling music like the sweet babble of a brook over stones; like the gentle sighing of the wind in pine-trees; like other of nature's enchanting sounds, which I really must borrow a poet's words to characterize:
"O liquid and free and tender!
O wild and loose to my soul!
O wondrous singer."
The gray-cheeked, most charming in every look and motion, uttered his notes in a free[Pg 162] sweep or crescendo, which began low, gathered force as he went on, and then gradually died out; all in one long slur, without a defined or staccato note, making a wonderful resemblance to wind sounds, as Emerson expresses it:
"His music was the Southwind's sigh."
The song of the veery was quite different, low, rapid, interspersed with a louder, wild-sounding cry, or, as aptly described by a listener, like the gurgling sounds made by blowing through a tube into soft water, with occasional little explosions. The soft, whispered warble of a brown thrush added a certain under-tone which combined and harmonized both these, forming with them a rhapsody of a rippling, bubbling character impossible to describe, but constantly reminding one of running streams, and gentle water-falls, and coming nearer to "put my woods in song" than any other bird-notes whatever. Neither of the performers opened his mouth, so that the trio was very low, a true whisper-song.
It was somewhat curious that with one exception all the birds in the room through these months sang whisper-songs also, without opening the bill. There were six of them, and every one delighted in singing; the three thrushes, a bluebird, a female orchard oriole, and a Mexican clarin. To the thrushes, music[Pg 163] seemed necessary to life; hour after hour they stood on their respective perches across the room, puffed out into balls, "pouring out their souls," and entrancing us not only with their suggestive melody, but with graceful and poetical movements, and a beauty of look and bearing that moved one deeply. During the aria both birds stood motionless, one with wings drooping, and accenting every note, the other with tail slightly jerking for the same purpose.
In character no less than in song the birds differed; bright, active and high-spirited, the gray-cheeked delighted in the freedom of the room, feared nothing, came upon the desk freely, and calmly met one's eyes with his own, brave free soul that he was, while his vis-à-vis was timid and shy, could not be induced to leave the shelter of his home though the door stood open all day. He never resented the intrusion of a neighbor, nor disputed the possession of his own dish.
Almost as interesting as his song was a bewitching dance with which the gray-cheeked charmed every one fortunate enough to see him. His chosen hour was the approach of evening, when, with body very erect and head thrown up in ecstasy, he lifted his wings high above his back, fluttering them rapidly with a[Pg 164] sound like soft patter of summer rain, while he moved back and forth on his perch with the daintiest of little steps and hops: now up, now down, now across the cage, with gentle noise of feet and wings. No music accompanied it, and none was needed—it was music itself. Not only did he dance away the long hours of twilight, till so dark he could not be seen, but he greeted the dawn in the same way; long before any other bird stirred, before the hideous morning call of the first sparrow in the street, the soft flutter of his wings, the light patter of his feet was heard. In the night also, if gas was lighted, however dimly, dancing began and was continued in the darkness, long after the light was out and every other feather at rest. A sudden light stopped the motion, but revealed the dancer agitated, stirred, with soft dark eyes fixed upon the observer. This dance was not an attempt or indication of a desire to escape, as I am sure for several reasons. I can tell the instant that longing for freedom sets in. It was a fresh sign of the strange, mysterious emotion with which all thrushes greet the rising and setting of the sun.
The singular use of the feet by this bird was very peculiar, and not confined to his dancing hours. While standing on the edge of the[Pg 165] bathing-dish, longing, yet dreading to enter the water, on alighting upon an unaccustomed perch, or venturing on to the desk, many times a day he took the little steps, lifting first one, then the other foot very slightly, and bringing it down with a sound without changing his position. It seemed to be an evidence of excitement, as another bird might exhibit by a quivering of the wings. The veery was also a dancer, but in a different way. He fanned his wings violently and moved back and forth across the top of a cage, but always in daylight, and then only on the rare occasions when, by placing his food outside, he was coaxed from his cage.
Bathing was—next to singing—the dear delight of the gray-cheeked's life, yet no bird ever had more misgivings about taking the fatal plunge. His first movement on leaving the cage was to go to the bath, around which he hovered, now this side, now that, one moment on the perch above, the next on the edge of the dish, plainly longing to be in, yet the mere approach of the smallest bird in the room drove him away. Not that he was afraid, he was not in the least a coward; he met everybody and everything with the dignity and bravery of a true thrush. Neither was it that he was disabled when wet, which makes some birds hesitate; he was never at all disordered by his[Pg 166] bath, and however long he soaked, or thoroughly he spattered, his plumage remained in place and he was perfectly able to fly at once. It appeared simply that he could not make up his mind to go in. Then too, it soon became apparent that he noticed his reflection in the water. He often stood on the edge after bathing, as well as before, looking intently upon the image. Before the glass he did the same, looking earnestly and in a low tone "uttering his thoughts to the ideal bird which he fancied he saw before him." Indeed, I think this ideal thrush was a great comfort to him.
Once having decided to go into the b............