inhospitality by espying your movements like a Japanese. The wood
thrush has none of theses underbred traits. He regards me
unsuspiciously, or avoids me with a noble reserve,--or, if I am quiet
and incurious, graciously hops toward me, as if to pay his respects,
or to make my acquaintance. I have passed under his nest within a few
feet of his mate and brood, when he sat near by on a branch eying me
sharply, but without opening his beak; but the moment I raised my hand
toward his defenseless household, his anger and indignation were
beautiful to behold.

What a noble pride he has! Late one October, after his mates and
companions had long since gone south, I noticed one for several
successive days in the dense part of this next-door wood, flitting
noiselessly about, very grave and silent, as if doing penance for some
violation of the code of honor. By many gentle, indirect approaches, I
perceived that part of his tail-feathers were undeveloped. The sylvan
prince could not think of returning to court in this plight, and so,
amid the falling leaves and cold rains of autumn, was patiently biding
his time.

The soft, mellow flute of the veery fills a place in the chorus of the
woods that the song of the vesper sparrow fills in the chorus of the
fields. It has the nightingale's habit of singing in the twilight, as
indeed have all our thrushes. Walk out toward the forest in the warm
twilight of a June day, and when fifty rods distant you will hear
their soft, reverberating notes rising from a dozen different throats.

It is one of the simplest strains to be heard,--as simple as the curve
in form, delighting from the pure element of harmony and beauty it
contains, and not from any novel or fantastic modulation of it,--thus