This unfortunate distrust of one's intentions makes it very hard for a student who loves the individual bird to watch his nest. One can't endure to give pain to the gentle and winsome creature. The mournful, despairing cry of both parents, "ke-o-ik! ke-o-ik! ke-o-ik!" constantly repeated, makes me, at least, feel like a robber and a murderer, and no number of "facts" to be gained will compensate me for the suffering thus caused. One more phase of veery character I was surprised and delighted to learn. Sitting on a log in the edge of the woods one evening, just at sunset, I listened to the singing of one of these birds quite close to me, but hidden from sight. I had never been so near a singer, and I was surprised to hear, after every repetition of his song, a low response, a sort of whispered "chee." Was it his mate answering, or criticising his music? Was it the first note of his newly-fledged offspring? Or could it be _sotto voce_ remarks of the bird himself? It was impossible to decide, and I went home much puzzled to account for it; but a day or two later the mystery was solved,--the thrush showed himself to be a humorist. The odd performance by which I discovered this fact I saw through my closed blind. The bird was in plain sight on a small dead tree, but it was a retired spot, where he was accustomed to see no one, and he evidently did not suspect that he had a listener. He had eaten his fill from a cluster of elderberries I had hung on the tree, and he lingered to sing a little, as he often did. First he uttered a call, aloud, clear "quee-o," and followed it instantly by a mocking squawk in an undertone. I could hardly believe my eyes and ears, and at once gave much closer attention to him. As if for the express purpose of convincing me that I had not been mistaken, he instantly repeated his effort; and after doing so two or three times, he poured out his regular song in his sweet, ringing voice, and followed it by a whispered "mew," almost exactly in the tone of pussy herself. He was not far from my window, across a small yard, and as plainly seen through my glass as though not six feet away. I saw his beak and throat, and am absolutely certain that he delivered every note. The absorbed singer stood there motionless a long time, and carried on this queer conversation with himself. It sounded precisely like two birds, one of whom was mocking or ridiculing the other in a low tone. Sometimes the undertone, as said above, was a squawk; again it resembled a squeal; now it was petulant, as though the performer scoffed at his own singing; and then it was a perfect copy of the song itself, given in an indescribably sneering manner. I could think of nothing but the way in which one child will sometimes mock the words of another. It was very droll, as well as exceedingly interesting, and I hope some day to study further this unfamiliar side of the thrush nature.