the latter part of
the run, which is all too brief, there is a strain which bears close
resemblance to the liquid melody of the eastern wood-thrush, but the
opening notes have a pathetic quality all their own. Perhaps Charles G.
D. Roberts can give some idea of one's feelings at a time like this:

"O hermit of evening! thine hour
Is the sacrament of desire,
When love hath a heavenlier flower,
And passion a holier fire."

A happy moment it was when a nest of this mountain hermit was
discovered, saddled on one of the lower limbs of a pine and containing
four eggs of a rich green color. These birds are partial to dense pine
forests on the steep, rocky mountain sides. They are extremely shy and
elusive, evidently believing that hermit thrushes ought to be heard and
not seen. A score or more may be singing at a stone's throw up an
acclivity, but if you clamber toward them they will simply remove
further up the mountain, making your effort to see and hear them at
close range unavailing. That evening, however, as the gloaming settled
upon the valley, one selected a perch on a dead branch some distance up
the hillside, and obligingly permitted me to obtain a fair view of him
with my glass. The hermits breed far up in the mountains, the greatest
altitude at which I found them being on the sides of Bald Mountain,
above Seven Lakes and a little below the timber-line. To this day their
sad refrains are ringing in my ears, bringing back the thought of many
half-mournful facts and incidents that haunt the memory.

A good night's rest in the cottage, close beneath the unceiled roof,
prepared the bird-lover for an all-day ramble. The matutinal concert was
early in full swing, the hermit thrushes, western robins, and Audubon's
warblers being the chief choralists. One gaudy Audubon's warbler visited
the quaking asp grove surrounding the cottage, and trilled the choicest
selections of his repertory. Farther up the valley several Wilson's
warblers were seen and heard. A shy little bird flitting about in the
tangle of grass and bushes in the swampy ground above the lake was a
conundrum to me for a long time, but I now know that it was Lincoln's
sparrow, which was later found in other ravines among the mountains. It
is an exceedingly wary bird, keeping itself hidden amid the bushy
clusters for the greater part of the time, now and then venturing to
peep out at the intruder, and then bolting quickly into a safe covert.