He soon finished his repast, flew to a dead branch, plumed his feathers, and after a few moments resumed his singing. He uttered a few trills of a rare musical quality that held his listener spellbound, then lightly flew to another branch overhanging the little ravine, at the bottom of which a babbling brook made music,--"not so liquid as siffleurs,"--says the historian. Here a few more strains fell from him, then he flitted to a swinging vine, repeated his bewitching note, and in a moment disappeared. The tones, says Mr. Ober, "are thrilling with solemn music and indescribably impressive." They have also a ventriloquial quality, and many tunes had he vainly searched for the singer, until a note of another sort betrayed his position, which was sometimes almost over the observer's head.
One morning a captive siffleur was dragged out of the trousers pocket of one of his "ragged brigade" and presented to the chronicler. These boys, whose help was indispensable to the collector, were a study in themselves. They were familiar with the habits, songs, and food of every bird in the woods, as well as expert in imitating the note of each one, and by this means drawing him to the fatal limed twigs. The interesting birds of the mountains, the siffleur, the trembleur, and others, they attracted by a peculiar hissing noise.
The bird brought to Mr. Ober had been caught by bird-lime and was unhurt, but greatly mortified and insulted by his treatment. He seemed at first dazed, and utterly silent. But after a while he gave utterance to a cry of distress, which he repeated at intervals on that first morning, particularly when people came too near him. Before night he evidently realized the uselessness of protests, and became silent. He never for a moment displayed the wild terror and panic seen in most birds when first caught.
The next morning he ate berries and drank fresh water calmly and without fear; but for several days he did not utter a sound. One of the peculiarities of these birds is their fearlessness in the presence of man, or perhaps more correctly their intelligence, which prevents them, as it does our native thrushes, from being frightened unless there is something really alarming.