It is quite a rare bird, of very shy and secluded habits, being found in the Middle and Eastern States, during the period of song, only in the deepest and most remote forests, usually in damp and swampy localities.  On this account the people in the Adirondack region call it the “Swamp Angel.”  Its being so much of a recluse accounts for the comparative ignorance that prevails in regard to it.

The cast of its song is very much like that of the wood thrush, and a good observer might easily confound the two.  But hear them together and the difference is quite marked:  the song of the hermit is in a higher key, and is more wild and ethereal.  His instrument is a silver horn which he winds in the most solitary places.  The song of the wood thrush is more golden and leisurely.  Its tone comes near to that of some rare stringed instrument.  One feels that perhaps the wood thrush has more compass and power, if he would only let himself out, but on the whole he comes a little short of the pure, serene, hymn-like strain of the hermit.

Yet those who have heard only the wood thrush may well place him first on the list.  He is truly a royal minstrel, and, considering his liberal distribution throughout our Atlantic seaboard, perhaps contributes more than any other bird to our sylvan melody.  One may object that he spends a little too much time in tuning his instrument, yet his careless and uncertain touches reveal its rare compass and power.

He is the only songster of my acquaintance excepting the canary, that displays different degrees of proficiency in the exercise of his musical gifts.  Not long since, while walking one Sunday in the edge of an orchard adjoining a wood, I heard one that so obviously and unmistakably surpassed all his rivals, that my companion, although slow to notice such things, remarked it wonderingly; and with one accord we paused to listen to so rare a performer.  It was not different in quality so much as in quantity.  Such a flood of it!  Such copiousness!  Such long, trilling, accelerating preludes!  Such sudden, ecstatic overtures would have intoxicated the dullest ear.  He was really without a compeer,—­a master artist.  Twice afterward I was conscious of having heard the same bird.

The wood thrush is the handsomest species of this family.  In grace and elegance of manner he has no equal.  Such a gentle, high-bred air, and such inimitable ease and composure in his flight and movement!  He is a poet in very word and deed.  His carriage is music to the eye.  His performance of the commonest act, as catching a beetle, or picking a worm from the mud, pleases like a stroke of wit or eloquence.  Was he a prince in the olden time, and do the regal grace and mien still adhere to him in his transformation?  What a finely proportioned form!  How plain, yet rich, his color,—­the bright russet of his back, the clear white of his breast, with the distinct heart-shaped spots!  It may be objected to Robin