At this time the bird appears like a small, slender Thrush, with a little golden-brown streak on the crown.
Suddenly from the pines comes the half-defiant call, "Teacher, Teacher, TEACHER!" each syllable accented, and rattled off with increasing volume, and you are quite incredulous, that so small a bird can utter such a sound. The notes are familiar to you; you have heard them. a hundred times breaking the intense noon stillness of the woods, but you had supposed that they proceeded at least from a large Woodpecker; but no, it is the Ovenbird; and this call has given him a third name, — the Accentor. By the tenth of May they leave the garden and seek the lighter woods where, having paired, they go into deeper shade to build their homes.
Hickory, oak, and beech woods, with fern-grown banks sloping to a stream, are their favourite haunts, and on these banks, where the ground is covered with leaves in various stages of decay, they build their hut-like nests. While thus occupied, the males give, at rare intervals, an exquisite little serenade to their mates, which is wholly different from the shrill call notes. It is most likely to be heard when the bird is on the wing in the early evening, and somewhat resembles the music of the Louisiana Water-thrush. Many people who are familiar with its nest and haunts have never heard this love-song. The nest is extremely difficult to locate; settled as it is into a ground hollow and roofed over, it may be easily passed by as a bunch of huddled leaves. Sometimes you may see a bird alight on the ground and run nimbly toward such a tuft, and that will be the best method of finding the nest, which, though it is cleverly hidden, often holds the unwelcome eggs of the Cowbird. All the singing and calling is done from the trees; and, as you look up in the uncertain wood-light, the singers appear to be only dusky specks, like the few last year's leaves that still lodge there. But when the rare music is heard, the little brown mote is transfigured, and soars above the trees.
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