28 LAND-BIRDS. 



All who wish to have an insight into the charms which 

 attend the study of animated birds should observe the Wood 

 Thrush in his native haunts, and faithfully attend the delight- 

 ful concerts which he so often repeats, in the cooler hours of 

 the day, in June, July, and even August. 



B. FUSCESCENS. Wilson's ThrusJi. Tawny Thrush, 

 Common Thrush. " CheeuryP " Veery.^^ ^' Nightingale^ 

 In Massachusetts the most common of the Wood Thrushes 

 (iA-E). * 



a. 7-7J inches long. Above, soft, bright reddish brown 

 (or " tawny "). Beneath, white ; breast strongly tinged with 

 fulvous (or a pinkish brown), and, together with the sides 

 of the throat, sparsely — sometimes almost imperceptibly — 

 streaked with small dusky spots. 



h. The nest is usuaUy placed on the ground, and rarely 

 in a bush or low tree. It is generally composed of grasses 

 and dead leaves, to which grape-vine bark is sometimes added, 

 and it is often lined with finer grasses and roots, or even 

 horsehairs. I have commonly, but not always, found it in 

 tussocks of grass or hillocks of moss, in swamps or near them. 

 The eggs average .85X.60 of an inch, and are light blue, 

 green-tinted. In Massachusetts, the first annual set (of four 

 or five t) generally appears in the last week of May, or the 

 first of June ; a second set (of three or four) is sometimes 

 laid in July. 



c. The Wilson's Thrushes are in Massachusetts the most 

 common of the so-called " Wood Thrushes," but in northern 

 New England are rare, being generally much less common 

 in New Hampshire and Maine than the Hermit or Swainson's 

 Thrush. They reach the neighborhood of Boston, in their 

 annual spring migrations, almost invariably on or about the 

 eighth day of May, and very often before pear-trees have blos- 

 somed, — a fact which I mention, because the blossoming of 



* A common summer resident, breed- ously in the Alleghanian than in the 

 ing throughout New England, save on Canadian fauna. — W. B. 

 the higher mountains, but more numer- t Sets of more than four are very 



seldom met with. — W. B. 



