ipper. There is no other
bird that I know of that can chip with such emphasis and military
decision as this yellow-eyed songster. It is like the click of a giant
gunlock. Why is the thrasher so stealthy? It always seems to be going
about on tiptoe. I never knew it to steal anything, and yet it skulks
and hides like a fugitive from justice. One never sees it flying aloft
in the air and traversing the world openly, like most birds, but
it darts along fences and through bushes as if pursued by a guilty
conscience. Only when the musical fit is upon it does it come up into
full view, and invite the world to hear and behold.

The chewink is a shy bird also, but not stealthy. It is very
inquisitive, and sets up a great scratching among the leaves, apparently
to attract your attention. The male is perhaps the most conspicuously
marked of all the ground-birds except the bobolink, being black above,
bay on the sides, and white beneath. The bay is in compliment to the
leaves he is forever scratching among,--they have rustled against his
breast and sides so long that these parts have taken their color; but
whence come the white and the black? The bird seems to be aware that his
color betrays him, for there are few birds in the woods so careful about
keeping themselves screened from view. When in song, its favorite perch
is the top of some high bush near to cover. On being disturbed at such
times, it pitches down into the brush and is instantly lost to view.

This is the bird that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Wilson about, greatly
exciting the latter's curiosity. Wilson was just then upon the threshold
of his career as an ornithologist, and had made a drawing of the Canada
jay which he sent to the President. It was a new bird, and in reply
Jefferson called his attention to a "curious bird" which was everywhere
to be heard, but scarcely ever to be seen. He had for twenty years
interested the young sportsmen of his neighborhood to shoot one for him,
but without success. "It is in all the forests, from spring to fall,"
he says in his letter, "and never but on the tops of the tallest trees,
from which it perpetually serenades us with some of the sweetest notes,
and as clear as those of the nightingale. I have followed it for miles,
without ever but once getting a good view of it. It is of the size
and make of the mockingbird, lightly thrush-colored on the back, and a
grayish white on the breast and belly. Mr. Randolph, my son-in-law, was