MONO HERMIT THRUSH 137 



able height through the foliage of the firs and other coniferous trees, 

 when it is followed with much difficulty, even if its brilliant song is 

 often heard. I shot the female type specimen while she was fluttering 

 about seventy -five feet from the ground at the ends of fir twigs and 

 catching insects in the manner of the warblers and tyrant flycatchers." 



On the fall migration this, like other thrushes, often resorts to yards 

 and gardens in towns and cities. Mr. Rathbun writes in his notes for 

 August 30, 1913: "Another hermit thrush was seen this afternoon in 

 the garden at the edge of the shrubbery. I was watering with the 

 hose, and the bird would run out and dabble in the water. Seeing 

 that it liked this, I created a little running stream, and the thrush 

 took advantage of this in which to bathe. The bird acted very tame, 

 and I played with it for fully ten minutes, driving it from place to 

 place by means of the hose, and still it would not leave." 



Voice. — The song of the Sierra hermit thrush is not inferior to the 

 far-famed song of our eastern bird, which to my mind is the most 

 uplifting of all bird songs ; once heard in the picturesque surroundings 

 of its mountain haunts, its charm can never be forgotten. Everyone 

 who has heard it has praised it. When heard in contrast with the 

 songs of other birds, any other song, however charming it may ordi- 

 narily be, seems like an intrusion on the soulful chant of this mountain 

 minstrel. 



Dawson (1923) writes of it: "Having nothing of the dash and 

 abandon of Wren or Ouzel, least of all the sportive mockery of the 

 Western Chat, it is the pure offering of a shriven soul, holding accept- 

 able converse with high heaven. * * * Mounted on the chancel 

 of some low-crowned fir tree, the bird looks calmly at the setting sun, 

 and slowly phrases his worship in such dulcet tones, exalted, pure, 

 serene, as must haunt the corridors of memory forever after." 



HYLOCICHLA GUTTATA POLIONOTA Grinnell 



MONO HERMIT THRUSH 



HABITS 



In the White Mountains of Mono and Inyo Counties in California, 

 Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1918) discovered this decidedly local subspecies, 

 which he found only in a limited range in these mountains between 

 8,000 and 10,000 feet altitude. He says of its characters: 



Size large, between that of H. g. sequoiensis of the Sierra Nevada and of H. g. 

 auduboni of the Rocky Mountains, nearest the former. Color of top of head and 

 dorsum different from that in either of these races and, in fact, from that in any 

 previously known race of Hermit Thrush. The tone of this coloration is the 

 "olive-brown" of Ridgway (1912), and is close to that of the corresponding areas 

 in the Olive-backed Thrush (Hylocichla ustulala swainsoni) ; it is if anything even 

 more slaty. * * * The race sequoiensis, of the Sierra Nevada just across 

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