OLIVE-BACKED THRUSH 183 



when frightened from this perch they will fly wildly away with a 

 flight almost as erratic as that of Wilson's Snipe." Sometimes the 

 bird will sit thus motionless for some time, but usually not for long, 

 and one must seize the first opportunity to note the buff eye ring, for 

 he is not likely to get another chance. If taken from the nest at the 

 right age, a young thrush can become a tame and interesting pet; 

 Miss Stanwood adopted one that was ten days old and was quite 

 successful with it; she gives a brief account of it in her published 

 paper (1913). 



Voice. — The olive-backed thrush is a fine singer, but most observers 

 agree that it is inferior as a vocalist to either the wood thrush or the 

 hermit; some even place the veery as superior to it; all three of these 

 thrushes have certain qualities in their songs that appeal more strongly 

 to the listener than does the oliveback's song. 



Aretas A. Saunders has sent me the following excellent description 

 of the oliveback's performance: "The olive-backed thrush, like other 

 thrushes, has a long-continued song, but the phrases of which it is 

 composed sound so much alike that the average listener is likely to con- 

 sider that the bird is singing the same song over and over. Each 

 phrase consists of 5 to 15 notes, generally all of them of equal length 

 and usually all connected. The phrase progresses upward in pitch, 

 the lowest note being the first or second one in the phrase and the high- 

 est the last or next to the last. In a typical phrase the first note is 

 lowest, while the second, fourth, sixth, etc., are each progressively 

 higher than any previous note. But the notes between these are lower 

 than the note that preceded them. It is as though the song progressed 

 upward by going over a series of higher and higher mounds, each 

 mound followed by a valley. 



"The quality is sweet and musical but less rich than that of the wood 

 thrush and not so pure and clear as that of the hermit. There is a 

 somewhat windy quality about it, as though the bird were saying 

 whao-whayo-whiyo-wheya-wheeya. Each phrase is slightly different in 

 arrangement or pitch from the others, but the difference is less appar- 

 ent than in other thrushes. Often a bird interpolates its call note 

 whit between the phrases, or at other times a high piping note, much 

 like the call of the spring peeper (Hyla crucijer) . 



"I have records from twenty-seven birds. The pitch ranges from 

 E ' ' to F ' ' ' ', half a tone over two octaves, but the majority of birds 

 sing between A ' ' and C ' ' ' '. Individual birds have from three to 

 nine different phrases, the majority about six. 



"It is not uncommon for the olive-backed thrushes to sing on the 

 migration. I usually hear more or less of the song nearly every year 

 in Connecticut; in fact I have missed it only 7 years in 25. The first 



