How many choralists
took part in the matutinal concert I cannot say, but there were scores
of them. The volume of song would sometimes swell to a full-toned
orchestra, and then for a few moments it would sink almost to a lull,
all of it like the flow and ebb of the tides of a sea of melody. It
was interesting to note how several voices would sometimes run into a
chime when they struck the same chord.

Let me call the roll of the members of that feathered choir. First,
and most gifted of all, were a couple of brown thrashers, whose tones
were as strong and sweet as those of a silver cornet, making the echoes
ring across the hollow. I have listened to many a thrasher song in the
North, the South, and the West, but have never heard a voice of better
timbre than that of one of the tawny vocalists singing that morning, as
he sat on the topmost twig of an oak tree and flung out his medley upon
the morning air. It is wonderful, anyway, with what an ecstasy the
thrasher will sometimes sing. Nothing could be plainer than that he
sings for the pure pleasure of it--an artist deeply in love with his
art.

Falling a little behind the thrashers in vocal power and technical
execution were the catbirds, which sent up their cavatinas from the
bushes in the hollow. Their voices lacked the volume and strength of
their rivals, yet some of their strains were truly the quintessence of
sweetness.

Conspicuous members of the early chorus were the wood thrushes, a dozen
or more of which were often singing at the same time. From every part
of the woods their peals arose. Of course, there was no attempt--at
least, so far as I could discover--to sing in concert, but each
minstrel followed his own sweet will, and so the combined result was
not what you would call a harmony, but a medley, albeit a very pleasing
one. If the wood thrush's execution were less labored, he would
certainly be a marvelous songster, and even as it is, he furnishes
unending delight to those whose ears are trained to appreciate avian
minstrelsy.

Two or three rose-breasted grossbeaks piped their liquid, childlike
arias; towhees, at least a half-dozen of them, flung forth their loud,
explosive trills that have a real musical quality; several cardinals
whistled as if they meant to drown out all the other voices; scarlet
and summer tanagers drawled their good-natured tunes, while their rich
robes gleamed in the level rays of the rising sun; running like silver
th