I crept quietly through all these winding halls, which I had never before explored. Near the northern portal of the glen stood a white birch, branchless, and mellow in decay, yet beautifully robed with delicate Butterfly Polypores of a velvety-purplish hue. Turning at the junction of the streams, I frightened up the oven-bird, the golden-crowned thrush. She moaned and fluttered away, as though in distress, dropping her wings and hiding among the ferns. I searched about for her nest, and soon found it low upon the ground. Her cottage door was open to the south, revealing five pinkish eggs mottled with purple. The nest was hooded,—thatched, as it were, like an Indian’s wigwam, with leaves, twigs, ferns, and mosses,—so like the ground itself that I nearly walked upon it. We have five true thrushes of genus _Turdus_ in the Atlantic Region—the Veery, Wood-Thrush, and Hermit-Thrush are found in this immediate region. They are our peerless woodland songsters, coming about May 1st, and often lingering until September 15th. The Veery winters in Central America, and flies as far north as Newfoundland to nest in summer. Like the Hermit-Thrush, it builds its nest on the ground. The Veery has a mysterious strain likened often to an Æolian harp; the Wood-Thrush rings like the chimes of vesper bells, and the Hermit-Thrush has the deepest note of all, rolling like “anthems clear” through the dim woods. Burroughs translates its song thus: “O spheral, spheral! O holy, holy!” My delight was complete, since I had found two rare birds’ nests within an hour,—those of the melancholy songster and the screaming jay. Four days later I visited both of these nests to see the birdlings. The mother jay was not at home, so I did not distress her when I climbed up to peep at the homely babies. I passed on down to the deeper glen to the oven-bird’s wigwam. She too was absent. Five little bald heads and five wide-gaping mouths were revealed as I drew near the nest, bespeaking the necessity of a thrifty mother to search for food to satisfy their needs. I touched their little heads, then drew back and waited almost an hour for the return of the mother bird, hoping to see the feeding of the young. But she was either shy or belated, and did not appear. THIRD SEASON XIII The Swamps and Hills of Mosholu and Lowerre, New York Within the circuit of this plodding life, There enter moments of an azure hue. THOREAU, _Excursions_.