The Veery (_Turdus Wilsonii_) has many habits like those of the Wood-Thrush, and some similarity of song. He is about the size of a Blue-Bird, and resembles the Red Thrush, except that the brown of his back is slightly tinged with olive. He arrives early in May, and is first heard to sing during some part of the second week of that month, when the sons of the Bobolink commences. He is not one of our familiar birds; and unless we live in close proximity to a wood that is haunted by a stream, we shall never hear his voice from our doors or windows. He sings neither in the orchard, nor the garden, nor in the suburbs of the city. He shuns the exhibitions of art, and reserves his wild notes for those who frequent the inner sanctuary of the groves. All who have once become familiar with his song await his arrival with impatience, and take note of his silence in midsummer with regret. Until this little bird has arrived, I always feel as an audience do at a concert, before the chief singer has made her appearance, while the other performers are vainly endeavoring to soothe them by their inferior attempts. This bird is more retiring than any other important singing-bird, except the Wood-Thrush,--being heard only in solitary groves, and usually in the vicinity of a pond or stream. Here, especially after sunset, he pours forth his brilliant and melancholy strains with a peculiar cadence, and fills the whole forest with sound. It seems as if the echoes were delimited with his notes, and took pleasure in passing them round with multiplied reverberations. I am confident this bird refrains from singing when others are the most vocal, from the pleasure he feels in listening either to his own notes, or to the melodious responses which others of his own kindred repeat in different parts of the wood. Hence he chooses the dusk of evening for his vocal hour, when the little chirping birds are mostly silent, that their voices may not interrupt his chant. At this hour, during a period of nine or ten weeks, he charms the evening with his strains, and often prolongs them in still weather till after dusk, and whispers them sweetly into the ear of night. No bird of his size has more strength of voice; but his song, though loud, is modulated with such a sweet and flowing cadence, that it comes to the ear with all the mellowness of the softest warbling. It would be difficult to describe his song. It seems at first to be wanting in variety. I was long of this opinion, though I was puzzled to account for its pleasing and extraordinary effect on the mind of the listener. The song of the Veery consists of five distinct strains or bars. They might, perhaps, be represented on the musical staff, by commencing the first note on D above the staff and sliding down with a trill to C, one fifth below. The second, third, fourth, and fifth bars are repetitions of the first, except that each commences and ends a few tones lower than the preceding.