140 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



(1902), five of which were typical of this subspecies; and, as they 

 were taken between May 1 1 and June 8, they were probably breeding 

 there. "This Thrush, which has not been previously reported from 

 any portion of Lower California, was found by Mr. Frazar only 

 in the Sierra de la Laguna, where it inhabited deep, moist, shady 

 canons, and also, to some extent, dry pine woods. It was not numer- 

 ous, but was seen almost daily during May, and up to the 9th of 

 June when Mr. Frazar started for Triunfo. The males were in full 

 song, and there can be little doubt that they and their mates were 

 settled for the season and preparing to breed on this mountain." 



Audubon's hermit thrush has well been called the Rocky Mountain 

 hermit thrush, for everywhere its chosen summer home is at the higher 

 altitudes in the mountains, in the deep recesses of the pine woods, in 

 the open groves of aspens, or higher up in the dense forests of spruces 

 and firs, even up to the tree limit. In Arizona and New Mexico it may 

 be looked for in summer at between 7,000 and 12,000 feet elevation; 

 and even as far north as Montana its range is between 4,000 and 6,000 

 feet altitude. Mrs. Bailey (1928) gives the following picture of its 

 haunts in New Mexico: 



At 11,000 feet, on Jack Creek below Pecos Baldy, we found them so surprisingly 

 abundant in the dense spruce and fir forest that we named our camp Hylocichla 

 Camp. From the woods above, below, and around us came their beautiful songs, 

 the first heard in the morning and the last at night. At sunset, as we walked 

 through the cool, still, spruce woods, its pale beards lit by the last slanting rays, 

 involuntarily treading lightly to make no sound, from unseen choristers a serene 

 uplifted chant arose, growing till it seemed to fill the remote aisles of the forest. 

 Sometimes a silvery voice would come from the open edge of the dark forest, where 

 the singer looked far down the mountainside and out over the wide mesa-clad 

 plains — a wide view, the beauty and sweep of which seemed in rare harmony with 

 his untroubled spirit. 



Russell K. Grater tells me that this thrush is a fairly common sum- 

 mer resident in Zion National Park, Washington County, Utah, above 

 8,000 feet, nesting in June and July, in the fir belt. 



Spring. — Audubon's hermit thrush probably breeds in some of the 

 higher, spruce-clad mountains in Arizona, but Mr. Swarth (1904) met 

 with it in the Huachucas only as a migrant between April 18 and May 

 19; the latter was in worn plumage and may have been a breeding bird. 

 "I secured most of my specimens of auduboni in the highest parts of 

 the range, feeding, not in the thick bushes and underbrush, as most of 

 the thrushes do, but on the open ground under the big pines, scratching 

 and working in the pine needles with which the ground was thickly 

 covered. One or two specimens were secured in the canyons as low 

 as 6,000 feet, but the great majority of the birds seen were along the 

 divide of the mountain, from 8,500 feet upward." 



