OLIVE-BACKED THRUSH 175 



the Canadian zone, where it is one of the commonest and most 

 characteristic of the birds. It is less common in the mature, dense conif- 

 erous forests than it is in the bordering growth of smaller trees, where 

 young balsam firs are growing up, with a mixture of birches and a 

 few other deciduous trees, but the presence of at least a fair proportion 

 of firs or spruces seems essential. A preference is shown for the lower 

 and damper sections of the forest, especially in the vicinity of wood- 

 land streams, but the birds are often found breeding in the dry upland 

 coniferous woods. In the more mountainous regions of northern 

 New England, the olive-backed thrush breeds at lower levels than 

 BicknelTs thrush. Wendell Taber writes to me: "In my experience, 

 there has always been a very sharp line of demarcation in habitat, 

 altitudinally, between this species and Bicknell's thrush." But 

 "the last oliveback will often be a few yards up grade from the first 

 BicknelFs. I heard two olivebacks at an altitude of 3,800 feet or 

 higher on Whiteface Mountain, Sandwich Range, N. H. On Mount 

 Katahdin, Maine, my highest oliveback was at about 2,600 feet, with 

 a Bicknell's also present." 



Edward H. Forbush (1929) draws the following attractive picture 

 of the haunts of this thrush in the Berkshire hills: 



Among the hills of western Massachusetts there remain isolated remnants of 

 the spruce growth that clothed them in days of yore. There today in the mur- 

 muring forest, tall, straight columnar trees still stand, their serried ranks extend- 

 ing far up the mountain sides. As they fall in death, succumbing to age or the ax 

 of the woodsman, the sun streaming in between the remaining trunks stimulates 

 the seeds buried by birds and squirrels in the soft mold of the forest floor and starts 

 a dense miniature forest of beautiful little spruces. In time these cover the ground 

 to replace the ancient wood and hide the great, moss-covered, decaying trunks on 

 the ground. Here and there young trees of moosewood and black birch are grow- 

 ing, and little brooks fringed by overshadowing ferns prattle noisily down over 

 their beds of age-old moss-grown rocks. Here the winds whisper the secrets of 

 the forest and here the Hermit Thrush with time and eternity all his own, sings 

 his unhurried, ethereal lay. Jays call mournfully from the distant tree- tops, 

 and at the foot of the slope we hear the strange chant of the Olive-backed Thrush . 



Prof. Maurice Brooks writes to me: " Apparently olivebacks were 

 found originally throughout the West Virginia spruce belt; when 

 most of the original timber was removed the birds have seemingly 

 been able to adjust themselves quite well to the brushy second 

 growth areas, particularly if there was some spruce regeneration. 

 They are not always restricted to spruce, however; I have found 

 them a few times in hemlock, and in Canaan Valley they may occur 

 where the forest is largely deciduous, although, so far as I have seen, 

 there must always be some spruce, balsam, or hemlock present. 

 One of our favorite spots is the fire lookout tower on Gaudineer 

 Knob of the Cheat Mountains. The tower stands at 4,445 feet 



