EASTERN HERMIT THRUSH 145 



life of our larger cities. After the ordeal of the nocturnal flight the 

 birds are hungry, often exhausted, and at such times exhibit little 

 fear and may be seen feeding about dooryards, allowing human 

 observers to approach near to them. It they are caught in a snow- 

 storm this behavior becomes even more pronounced. I have had 

 individuals, benumbed by the cold, eat out of my hands, and one 

 bird even allowed me to pick it up to be carried to the house to be 

 warmed. 



The hermits follow no special migration route in reaching their 

 northern home except in the far West. Here they fly on a direct 

 northwest route that takes them as far as the Mackenzie and Yukon 

 Valleys. In fall the hermit starts southward in September, but it is 

 well toward the end of October before the bulk of them have left 

 their northern summer ranges. E. A. Preble tells me that he saw 

 one early in December in Wilmington, Mass., about 1890. 



Nesting. — The nest of the hermit thrush is a compact structure 

 but often bulky in the amount of nesting materials used. The 

 foundation and exterior of a typical nest are composed of twigs, 

 strips of wood, bark fibers, dried grass, and ferns and ornamented 

 on the outside by bits of green moss. The lining is made up of pine 

 needles, delicate plant fibers, or fine rootlets. The interior dimensions 

 of the nesting bowl are about 2% inches across by 2 inches deep. 



The nest is generally built on the ground and in a natural depression 

 of a knoll or hummock, often under a small fir or hemlock whose 

 branches touch the ground, forming a kind of protective canopy over 

 the nest. One nest found in northern Michigan was in a rather open 

 space of woodland and was completely surrounded by blossoming 

 bunchberries, and another nest was completely hidden from view 

 by a luxuriant growth of ferns. I have found them along the edges 

 of old wood roads and on the borders of pasturelands skirted by 

 shrubbery and trees. In northern Maine the nests may be found in 

 tussocks of the wet sphagnum bogs that are surrounded by growths 

 of larches, spruce, and other coniferous trees. On Long Island the 

 hermit frequents the hottest and driest barrens where the ground is 

 carpeted with little else but bearberry and pine-barren sandwort. 

 Near the site of the University of Michigan Biological Station, 

 Douglas Lake, northern Michigan, the hermit is one of the commonest 

 of the nesting birds. During July 1928 we found six nests in dry 

 upland covered with a second growth that had sprung up after a 

 severe fire that had raged through the section a few years before. 



The hermit sometimes departs from its usual habit of nesting on 

 the ground. Henry R. Carey (1925) reports finding a nest 5 feet up 

 in a small hemlock, and Horace W. Wright (1920) found a hermit's 



