Varied Thrush

A deep-toned whistle sounded in the corridor and the author came into Doctor Dwight's room in the Natural History Museum where I was changing the white surface of watercolor paper with a paint brush.

"Ever hear that note?"

"I sure have."

"Where?"

"On the Banks; and the last time I heard it convinced me that deep sea fishing was a bit too hazardous a game to follow for a living.

"Don't take the checkerboard this afternoon, boys," said the skipper as we cleared the dory from the schooner's rail.

"Make yer set to lu'ard — this sou'easterly breeze is goin' to back. Snow's comin'. Don't sit on yer fins — start haulin' yer gear soon as the killick's down!"

"Sounds like teacher in a kindergarten," mumbled Flanagan, my dorymate, lighting his pipe with the first match altho the breeze was not gentle. "Good skipper, tho, — only lost two men in five years and they'd be on top yet if they'd done as he told 'em. Their own dammed fault — this is 'bout right — over with ther sinker!"

"How about a little drag before we haul, Flanagan?"

"Bill said to fish it as soon as it was over, an' that's what we're goin' to do. Won't much more'n make the marker now — you see what's comin'?"

A snow squall had blotted the schooner, killed the southerly wind and hit us just as we boated the buoy.

The trawl was about half in the tub when Flanagan straightened as a faint whistle came out of the nor'ard murk.

"Steamer," he commented, and went on snaking lazy cod over the rail into the dory where they lay with cowlike indifference.

The squall thickened, the whistle grew louder at each repetition. The Eva and Annie's foghorn was going fullpeep in answer.

"Driving her full speed and not a so-and-so aboard caring a sculpin's damm whether they cut us — Pull!"

With a single knife sweep Flanagan cut the trawl, leaped to the seat, shipped the oars and bent them.

"Put your back into it, boy!"

Action, swift and feverish as a nightmare, filled the moments.

A great black sword loomed over white curling bow waves — the dory's stern rose till only toe grips in battens prevented a back somersault. My dorymate hadn't time to get this hold and he fell, his face on my knees and I looked into eyes which glinted angrily. His lips moved but the steady blare of the whistle filled space.

"What did vou say?"

"The — ! My pipe's gone!"

"Just a few more fish in the bows and we'd a pitchpoled nose under and followed your pipe. The show's over. Let's see if we can pick up the schooner. It's hunting a flea on a flat car but I guess we'll make it." Flanagan enlivened the jaunt with threats of what he'd like to do to crew of the steamer and loud laments over the loss of his sacred pipe.

"But I wasn't imitating a steamer's whistle — that is the note of the VARIED THRUSH. Fuertes has been whistling it and I've been trying to catch the tone."

When Fuertes dropped in later I asked him to tell me about the bird. His remarks, as I remember, are epitomized in the following quote from Bailey where he says: (Fuertes) This bird's unique and mysterious song may be heard in the deep still spruce forests for a great distance, being very loud and wonderfully penetrating. It is a single long drawn note, uttered in several different keys, some of the high pitched ones with a strong vibrant thrill. Each note grows out of nothing, swells to a full tone, then fades to nothing until one is carried away with the mysterious song. When heard nearby, as is seldom possible, the pure yet resonant quality makes one thrill with a strange feeling and is as perfectly the voice of the cool, dark peaceful solitude which the bird chooses for its home, as could be imagined. The Hermit Thrush is no more serene than imagined. this wild dweller in the western spruce forests.