126 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



gives one the impression of spiritual alertness, a certain high readiness. I tried 

 on a time to count these twinkles, with the compensatory flirt of the tail, as the 

 bird was hopping about on the ground in my rose garden. The movements 

 occurred about once per second, yet oftenest in groups, and so rapidly, that not 

 a twentieth part of the bird's time seemed so consumed. * * * 



In one station which the bird occupied, being not over seven feet from me, I 

 could, by closing one eye and focussing the other upon a closely placed background 

 of greenery, note the extreme limit of the wing-motion. The tip, in each instance, 

 travelled at least two inches from the body; yet the return was so instant and the 

 dress so quickly composed that no detail of the readjustment could be traced. 



Howard L. Cogswell refers in his notes to the wing-flipping habit, 

 described above, and says that "the hermit's habit of slowly raising 

 its tail after alighting, so often used in identification in the East, does 

 not always take place in western birds, I have found." 



Fall. — Mr. Rathbun's notes mention the first arrivals of the Alaska 

 hermit thrushes in Clallam County, Wash., on October 10, 1915, when 

 seven were seen along the shore of Crescent Lake near the beach, 

 where the shore was overhung with bushes growing at the edge of 

 the water. 



Referring to the Yosemite region in California, Grinnell and Storer 

 (1924) say: "By the latter part of September, birds which have nested 

 in various parts of southern Alaska begin to arrive, to spend the 

 winter here. In the fall the Dwarf and Alaska hermit thrushes, as 

 the two races from the north are called, occur in considerable numbers 

 at all altitudes below 9,000 feet. The arrival of heavy snow forces 

 most of those in the higher zones to below the 4,000 or 3,500 foot 

 contour." 



Winter. — Mr. Cogswell (MS.) says of this species: ''The hermit 

 thrush is common throughout the winter in coastal southern California, 

 but most common in the shady oak-sycamore association of the can- 

 yons of the foothills, in tall, dense growth of climax chaparral (in 

 small canyons), and in the residential sections of many cities wherever 

 there is plenty of brush and hedge cover and a steady water supply. 

 The highest altitude at which I have seen the hermit thrush in mid- 

 winter was about 5,000 feet in the upper Santa Ana Canyon, San 

 Bernardino Mountains, on December 28, 1941. This one was calling 

 the usual chuck-chuck note from underneath a canopy of snow-covered 

 chaparral, about 9 a. m., with the temperature at 20° F. Occasional 

 birds are heard singing in soft, detached phrases from mid-March 

 until they leave early in April; but during the rest of then stay in 

 the southern California lowlands, the chuck note and a louder, ringing 

 cheeeeeeeee (slightly rising pitch) are their only notes." 



