The canary, among foreign birds, and the linnet and bobolink, among American birds, are familiar examples of the first class; the common robin and the veery of the second; the wood-thrush, the cat-bird, and the mocking-bird, of the third; and the blue-bird, the pewee, and the purple martin, of the fourth class.

The bobolink, the veery, or Wilson's thrush, the red thrush, and the golden robin, are silent after the middle of July; the wood-thrush, the cat-bird, and the common robin, not until a month later; but the song-sparrow alone continues to sing throughout the summer.

The difference between the music of birds like the mocker, the thrasher, and the catbird and that of birds like the hermit, the veery, and the wood thrush is one of kind, not of degree; and I have heard music of the mocking-bird's kind (the thrasher's, that is to say) as long as I have heard music at all.

But if we are to indulge in comparisons, give me the wood thrush, the hermit, and the veery; with tones that the mocking-bird can never imitate, and a simplicity which the Fatesthe wise Fates, who will have varietyhave put forever beyond his appreciation and his reach.

I perceive that in the veery's carolling, the clover's scent, the glistening of the water, the waving wings of butterflies, the sunset tints, the floating clouds, there are attainable infinitely more subtile modulations of delight than I can yet reach the sensibility to discriminate, much less describe.

Their existence blooms again in these violet-petals, glitters in the burnished beauty of these golden beetles, or enriches the veery's song.

I wondered, as he sang, if the veery was the thrush that, to Walt Whitman's fancy, "in the swamp in secluded recesses" mourned the death of Lincoln: Solitary the thrush, The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements, Sings to himself a song.

Finally, among these unfamiliar forms was a veery, and the sight of the rufous- olive back and faintly spotted throat of this singer of our northern Junes made us almost homesick.

WILSON'S THRUSH Commonly called VEERY from the sound of one of its notes "How still it is here!" said Dodo, as they walked along the footpath that wound in and out among the trees toward the edge of the river.

[Illustration: Veery.]

" "Is that Veery only visiting here, or will he build a nest?" asked Nat.

But we do not need to see a Veery to know of his presence if we once learn his song by heart, because we shall remember it as long as our hearts beat.

Then Dodo nestled close to Olive and whispered, "I think that Veery is singing his prayers.

THE HERMIT THRUSH "When we return to the house," said the Doctor, "I will show you the Veery and Hermit Thrush also; for whether or not you will hear the Hermit sing will depend very much upon what part of North America you live or travel in, and this bird's song is its chief claim to fame.

"See, this is the way they go arm in arm when they walk in the great procession of Bird families: "The Bluebird and the Robin; "The Wood Thrush and the Veery; "The Hermit and the Olive-back.

" "The Veery?" "An even light-brown back, the same from head to tail.

The spots on the Wood Thrush are the roundest and blackest; those on the Veery are the smallest, lightest, and most on the throat; on the Hermit they are longer and run together more like stripes; and those on the Olive-back are most like the Hermit's.

"I hear a Veery," said Rap, "and a Phoebe too.