The hidden, the subtle, find voice in the veery. His is perhaps the most spiritual strain of all, himself the high priest of the mystic lore of the forest. Of the thrush family he is the consecrated member, as the robin is the worldling among them. I believe there is no other bird voice so mysterious; so impersonal is it, so spiritlike, it appears to emanate from a world of higher motive than ours. In the devotional strain of the hermit, the forest prayer is breathed on the mountains. No hymn could be less impassioned, less material, more truly _spiritual_ than the song of this thrush; it is nearest the speech of angels. Of all instruments the organ and the harp are alone capable of producing any such effect. On rare occasions I have heard the veery indulge in a reverie never to be forgotten. It appeared to be wholly inspired and original as though the bird were improvising like some Abt Vogler at his organ, rearing a palace of music. The motive was complex and involved, and sung so _pianissimo_ as to be just audible, like the love-song of the catbird, a rapt utterance which admitted one to the sacred arcana of Nature. It is not unprecedented for a bird to depart thus from its usual song and to improvise. You may detect even the jay in this mood, though it is wholly imitative with him. The love-song of the catbird and the autumn reverie of the song-sparrow are perhaps the best instances. I am not yet wholly familiar with the songs of the robin. It appears he is still studying music, and adds a phrase or varies a theme occasionally. He is the most romantic of the thrushes; his song is more personal and less spiritual than the others. When, in early spring, the robins sing together at sundown, there is an exquisite tenderness in their notes which accords with the sweet youthfulness of the year. It is later in the season, when his mate sits upon the nest, that the robin rises to the heights of lyric beauty and pours out his soul from the top of the tallest maple in the swamp,--a brave sweet love-song, sung with dignity and without hesitation, that all his world may hear. At dawn he is moved a little more to the rapt and religious expression of the thrushes. Something there is in the solemnity of that hour which touches the hearts of all little birds. What it is we shall perhaps never know; shall never know enough of bird life to understand what emotions they may have which so powerfully sway them and become evident in their voices. The evidence is there; the cause is to be inferred. While the birds are everywhere more or less affected by the approaching day and give voice to their feelings, there appear to be musical centers in the bird world in which the expression is more concerted than in other localities,--favored sections where this hymn to Apollo is memorable indeed and hardly to be described. It is a great chant with all its solemnity, all its impressiveness.