This song alone placed the clarin at the head of all songsters that I have heard or heard of, and I have heard all of our own best songsters, and the nightingale and wood lark of Europe. But after nearly a year of this he came out one memorable day with an entirely new melody, much more intricate and more beautiful, which for some time he reserved for very special and particular occasions, still giving the former one ordinarily. Some months later, to my amazement, he added a third chant, part of which so resembled that of the wood thrush that if he had been near one I should have thought it a remarkable mimicry. He delivered this with the exquisite feeling of the native bird, even the delicious quivering tone at the end, which indeed my bird often repeated in a low tone by itself. Sometimes, when the room was very still and he sitting on his perch, feathers puffed out, perfectly happy, he breathed out this most bewitching tremulous sound without opening his beak,--a performance enchanting beyond words to express.
These themes the clarin constantly varied, and in the three years of his life with me I often noted down, in a sort of phonetic way, his songs, as he delivered them, and I have six or seven that are perfectly distinct and different. He never mixed them together or united them; he rarely sang two on the same day. All through, too, there seemed so much reserve power that one could not resist the conviction that he could go on and on, and break one's heart with his voice if he chose. The bird's own deep feeling was shown by his conduct; the least movement in the room would shut him up instantly. One could heartily say with another bird-lover across the sea, "If he has not a soul, who will answer to me for the human soul?"
It was reserved for the last weeks of his life for my bird to give me the most genuine surprise. One day I sat quietly at my desk. The bird stood on a perch very near my head,--so near I could not turn to look at him, when, without a moment's hesitation, without an instant's preliminary practice, he burst out into a glorious, heavenly, perfect song that struck me dumb and breathless. Not daring to move hand or foot, yet wanting some record of the wonderful aria, I jotted down, in the page I was writing, a few of the opening notes; I could re-write my page, but I could not bear to lose the music. Three times, at intervals of perhaps one minute, he uttered the same marvelous song, and then I never heard it again. After all, I had not a record of it, for though it was deliberate and distinct, at every repetition I was spellbound, and could not separate it into tones.