GEAY-CHEEKED THRUSH 77 



Gray-cheeked Thrushes described below. Both species are 

 so shy that it is often impossible to get near enough to 

 distinguish one from the other. If an Olive-back perches 

 for a moment in good light, the observer can make out that 

 the feathers under the eye, the cheek, so to speak, are of a 

 yelloioer shade than the rest of the head ; 2, faint huffy eye- 

 ring, too, is a distinctive mark. The spotting is not heavy, 

 nor does it extend down the flanks, as in the Wood Thrush ; 

 the entire upper parts are olive-brown, nowhere tawny. 

 Sometimes the bird when startled utters its call-note, whit, 

 or answers an imitation of it ; this note is characteristic, and 

 settles its identity. 



Gray-cheeked Thrush. Hylocichla alicice 

 Bicknell's Thrush. Hylocichla alicice hicknelli 



7.58; 6.25-7.25 



Ad. $. — Upper parts olive-brown; no huffy eye-ring or icash 

 on cheek ; under parts white ; throat and breast spotted with black. 



Nest, in scrub spruce or fir. Eggs, greenish-blue, spotted with 

 brown. 



The Gray-cheeked Thrush is a migrant through New 

 England and New York. Its habits and haunts are very 

 like those of the Olive-backed Thrush, and it appears at 

 about the same time. On the higher Catskills and on the 

 high mountains of northern New England just below the 

 timber line, where the stunted spruce and fir grow close 

 together, a smaller race of this thrush, known as Bicknell's 

 Thrush, is a common summer resident. 



As a migrant it sings less than the Olive-backed Thrush, 

 but on the mountain summits its song and call-note are 

 constantly heard, especially at dawn and at dusk. The call- 

 note is like the syllables fee'-a, sharp and petulant, often 

 rising to a high strident note suggesting a nasal note of the 

 Red-winged Blackbird. This call, like the Veery's, may be 

 much modified and subdued. The song is very similar in 



