210 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



young bird kept in captivity for a year proved to be a delightful pet, 

 cheerful, playful, full of curiosity, and, aside from his dislike of being 

 handled, was relatively fearless and friendly. 



Voice. — The songs of our wood-inhabiting thrushes appear to be 

 divisible into two distinct types — the slower, leisurely outpourings of 

 separated phrases of greatly variable pitch, such as are characteristic 

 of the wood and hermit thrushes; and the more continuous, slurred, 

 chiming notes of more or less unvarying pitch typified by the veery 

 and the gray-cheeked group. The Bicknell's song, by common con- 

 sent, is of the veery type, distinguished from it chiefly by the charac- 

 teristic break occurring a little past the middle of the song. The 

 oliveback's song is somewhat intermediate in character, with the 

 continuous notes exceedingly variable in pitch. 



From the qualitative standpoint the Bicknell's song has been con- 

 sidered somewhat inferior for a thrush, no doubt largely because the 

 veery type of singing is less popular than the rich, carefully expressed 

 melody of the wood and hermit thrushes. It may, in fact, be an 

 unperf ected — or a degenerate — veery song : shorter, wilder, and higher- 

 pitched, with less of the chiming quality that is so appealing in a 

 veery's singing. There is, nevertheless, a special fascination in the 

 song of the Bicknell's thrush, a wild, ringing, ethereal quality that is 

 in perfect keeping with the evergreen solitudes it inhabits. 



As a result of the numerous excursions in quest of Bicknell's thrush, 

 considerable literature has been built up about its song. This has 

 produced many fine descriptions, and a few erroneous accounts, such 

 as the one quoted in Forbush's monumental work on New England 

 birds, which likened the song to that of an olive-backed thrush. The 

 literature on the singing of this bird, with many selected citations, has 

 been reviewed at some length by Wallace (1939) and need not be 

 reiterated here. The following concise summary may serve the place 

 of the fuller description: 



The song is introduced by two or three, usually two, low clucking 

 notes, chook-chook, audible only at close range. The preliminary 

 grace notes are hurriedly followed by two to four, usually three, 

 high-pitched, vibrant, ringing phrases that slur downward, similar to 

 but less marked than in the so-called intertwining circles of the veery 

 that so suggest chiming. Usually on the third, but sometimes on the 

 second or fourth, of these phrases there is an emphatic break, which is 

 accompanied by both rise in pitch and increased intensity. This 

 break comes a little past the middle of the song and is the peculiar 

 feature that distinguishes the Bicknell's song from that of the veery 

 and the northern gray-cheeked thrush. This climax phrase, consisting 

 of several merged notes, is held for an instant, then runs imperceptibly 

 into the closing notes, which are unemphasized. The final phrase 



