190 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



seeds and rootlets; filled with buoyant exultation it pauses now and then to pour 

 forth those strange but pleasing cadences which once heard in their full sweetness 

 will never be forgotten. But it has no time to tarry, and ere long it is already 

 far on its way to the north. The strange, wild song which arose but a short time 

 since in pleasant woodland spots and quiet nooks in southern groves is now heard 

 by wandering Indians who seek their summer fishing-grounds by the banks of 

 northern streams. Yet a little later and it troops in abundance near to the shores 

 of the Arctic, where the Mackenzie and other rivers pour their spring floods into 

 the icy sea. Down the Yukon these birds pass, using the densely bush-grown 

 bank of the river as their highway, raising now and then their song which finds 

 here fittest surroundings. Reaching the mouth of the Yukon, many wander 

 along the coast of Bering Sea to the north, and some are said to cross the straits. 



On migration gray-cheeked thrushes may be seen almost anywhere 

 that they can find sufficient cover, in woodlands, or along the edges, 

 in thickets along streams, in roadside shrubbery, in thick growths of 

 young evergreens, and even in village yards or gardens or in city parks. 

 They come along with the host of later migrants and are often in 

 company with olivebacks, or in the east with the smaller BicknelFs; 

 they can hardly be distinguished from the latter in life and must be 

 seen under favorable circumstances to tell them from olivebacks. 

 In the great wave of migrating birds that swept through the narrow 

 timber belt along Maple Creek, southwestern Saskatchewan, on 

 June 8, 1906, thrushes were very numerous. Only two were collected, 

 one of which proved to be aliciae and the other a small specimen of a 

 female bicknelli identified by my companion, Dr. Louis B. Bishop. 



Lucien M. Turner, in his unpublished Labrador notes, says: "At 

 the head of Hamilton Inlet, this thrush occurs in abundance, arriving 

 about the 25th of May and remaining until the middle of September, 

 breeding there plentifully even in the undergrowth surrounding the 

 houses." 



Nesting. — Breeding in a region where trees are stunted or replaced 

 by low bushes, the gray-cheeked thrush builds its nest not far from 

 the ground or even on it among low-growing shoots. A nest found by 

 Johan Koren at Nijni Kolymsk, in northeastern Siberia, on June 15, 

 1912, was "placed on the ground among the stems of young alders," 

 according to Thayer and Bangs (1914); it contained five fresh eggs. 

 Dr. Grinnell (1900) says that, in the Kotzebue Sound region of north- 

 ern Alaska, "the nests of this species were quite variously situated, 

 according to environment. In willow and alder beds I found them 

 within a foot of the ground built on the slanting or horizontal trunks. 

 While in the spruce woods they were found as high as twenty feet, 

 though commonly about six feet above the ground. A typical nest 

 is of fine shriveled grass blades, incorporated when damp, and mixed 

 with a small amount of mud. The lining is of fine dry grasses. When 

 this structure dries it is remarkably compact and firm, in fact almost 



