IN the summer of 1897, wandering in the woods of Pigeon Cove, on the outer point of Cape Ann, the prolonged call of a bird often came to my ears, which aroused my curiosity. I was not then much acquainted with birds, but was beginning to "take notice" and usually carried my field glass on my walks, and if I saw or heard a bird unfamiliar to me, tried to look him up in my books. I had with me "Our Common Birds and How to Know Them," by John B. Grant; also Florence Merriam's "Birds Through an Opera Glass"—very good books to aid beginners in identifying birds. The call of which I speak was so marked and so often repeated that I eagerly searched for the bird, but could not get a glimpse of him, nor even locate the sound accurately.

I soon perceived, however, that it was a regular chant, increasing in an even crescendo, vibrating through the woods. I remembered reading descriptions of such a call in the books, and soon found my bird to be the oven-bird, golden-crowned thrush, or teacher bird.

But why "teacher" bird?

I was constantly asking this question, for to my ears the sound always came as ti-chee, ti-chee, ti-chee, with accent always on the final syllable. By no exercise of the imagination could I make it sound like "teacher." Never during that summer nor during the two succeeding summers have I heard these birds at Pigeon Cove say "teacher."

The little brown walker kept out of my sight very persistently during that first summer, but in September, walking in the woods near Star Lake in the Adirondacks, I had a good, near view of two little olive-green birds walking on some low branches. Their white speckled breasts proclaimed them thrushes, while the beautiful crown of brownish orange inclosed in lines of black, plainly marked them the "golden-crowned." Often as I have seen the bird since, his golden crown has never appeared as conspicuous as it did on that September day by the mountain lake. But I had to go to Skaneateles Lake in central New York to hear him say "teacher." On a May morning in in 1899, sitting on a mountain side overlooking this beautiful sheet of water, the chant of a bird came vibrating through the woods to my ears, teach-ah, teach-ah, teach-ah, teach-ah, teach-ah very distinctly.

Accent clearly on the first syllable this time.

Ah! Mr. Burroughs, at last I have found your little "teacher."

Will anyone tell me why this bird with olive back and speckled, thrush-like breast, is placed in the family MniotiltidÆ, or wood warblers, instead of with the TurdidÆ, or thrushes? And why is the "water thrush" also classed with wood warblers, when his olive back and speckled breast make him seem almost a twin brother to the oven bird, while both are so unlike other members of the warbler family, and so much resemble the true thrushes? It was at Glen Haven, beside a mountain brook tumbling down into Skaneateles Lake that I had my first and only view of a water thrush.

His clear song, repeatedly ringing out above the noisy music of the brook, kept luring me onward and upward over the rough banks, till at length I saw the little walker peering about among the stones for his food. Another bird closely resembling the thrushes and bearing the name, yet placed in another family, is the brown thrasher, or thrush. I look in my book for his classification. Family TroglodytidÆ! I can scarcely believe my eyes! Can any one give me any earthly reason why the ornithologists in their wisdom have seen fit to place this bird, with his reddish brown back, speckled breast and beautiful thrush-like song, in the same family with catbirds and wrens? Truly the mysteries of ornithology are past my comprehension.

To return to our "teacher." My acquaintance with him has not yet advanced to the stage of finding him "at home" in his dwelling. As Neltje Blanchan says, "it is only by a happy accident" that one might "discover the little ball of earth raised above the ground, but concealed by leaves and twigs and resembling a Dutch oven, which gives the bird its name of oven-bird." Last summer at Pigeon Cove the warning cries of a mother-bird led me to suspect a nest, but I failed to find it. The brood had evidently left their home, for a sudden loud outcry from the mother-bird startled me as the little thrushes scurried out of the path from almost under my feet, while Madame Thrush fluttered about with a pretense of a broken wing to distract my attention. Her "trailing" was quite effective, for by the time I had turned my attention from her performance to the babies, they were quite out of sight.