76 BIRDS OF NEW ENGLAND AND EASTERN NEW YORK 



Its reddish-brown tail and the trick of raising it slowly, 

 distinguish the Hermit from the other thrushes. (See also 

 under Fox Sparrow, p. 154.) 



Olive-backed Thrush ; Swainson's Thrush. Hylo- 



cichla ustulata swainsoni 



7.17 



Ad. $ . — Upper parts olive-brown; eye-ring huffy • cheek, when 

 seen in strong light, washed with buff; breast whitish, spotted with 

 black. 



Nest, in bushes or small trees, bulky and compact. Eggs, light 

 greenish-blue, spotted with brown. 



The Olive-backed or Swainson's Thrush breeds on Grey- 

 lock Mountain in Massachusetts, on the higher Catskills, in 

 deep spruce swamps on the southern Xew T Hampshire and 

 Vermont upland, and commonly all through northern Xew 

 England and in the Adirondacks. In the rest of Xew Eng- 

 land and Xew York it is a spring and fall migrant, a bird 

 seen only by those who look for it. During the second half 

 of May it may be found in roadside thickets, open woods, 

 and even in the }^ards of villages and towns, if there is attrac- 

 tive shrubbery and if the locality is favorable to migration. 



The bird occasionally sings on migration, early in the 

 morning and toward evening ; but on its northern breeding- 

 ground the song becomes a characteristic sound. It is un- 

 mistakably the voice of a thrush, like a Veery's song in- 

 verted, going up instead of down the scale, but throatier, 

 more gurgling, inferior in purity, richness, and suggestive- 

 ness to those of the three other common thrushes. Its call- 

 note is a sharp wit it. which can be varied in tone and power ; 

 it also utters on its breeding-ground a note like the syllables 

 chee-urr. In the fall, from the end of September to early 

 October, the migrant birds frequent the dry birch-lined 

 lanes or country roads, or the open glades of woodland ; 

 with them are often associated, both in spring and fall, the 



