242 THE INVITATION. 



of the bobolink he makes a point of the fact that in 

 returning South in the fall they do not travel by night 

 as they do when moving North in the spring. In 

 Washington I have heard their calls as they flew over 

 at night for four successive autumns. As he devoted 

 the whole of a long life to the subject, and figured 

 and described over four hundred species, one feels a 

 real triumph on finding in our common woods a bird 

 not described in his work. I have seen but two. 

 Walking in the woods one day in early fall, in the 

 vicinity of West Point, I started up a thrush that was 

 sitting on the ground. It alighted on a branch a few 

 yards off, and looked new to me. I thought I had 

 never before seen so long-legged a thrush. I shot it, 

 and saw that it was a new acquaintance. Its pecul- 

 iarities were its broad, square tail ; the length of its 

 legs, which were three and three quarters inches from 

 the end of the middle toe to the hip-joint ; and the 

 deep uniform olive-brown of the upper parts, and the 

 gray of the lower. It proved to be the gray-cheeked 

 thrush {Tardus alicicB), named and first described by 

 Professor Baird. But little seems to be known con 

 oerning it, except that it breeds in the far North, even 

 on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. I would go a 

 good way to hear its song. 



The present season I met with a pair of them near 

 Washington, as mentioned above. In size this bird 

 approaches the wood-thrush, being larger than either 

 the hermit or the veery ; unlike all other species, no 

 Dart of its plumage has 9 tawny or yellowish tinge 



