186 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



of this Hawk's abundance little scattered piles of thrush feathers can 

 be found every here and there through the underbrush." 



Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1923) heard the distress cries of a pair of 

 olive-backed thrushes and on investigation "found two of these birds 

 flying about a Red Squirrel who sat erect on a fallen tree, holding in his 

 fore-paws a partly eaten Thrush in the spotted juvenal plumage. The 

 squirrel's face was smeared with blood and it was altogether a most 

 lamentable spectacle." 



Harold S. Peters (1933) lists as external parasites of this thrush a 

 louse, Myrsidea incerta (Kellogg), and a tick, Haemaphysalis leporis- 

 palustris Packard. 



Many thrushes, as well as other birds that migrate at night, meet 

 their death by flying against lighthouses. 



Fall. — Mrs. Cochran's (1935) banding records, referred to in the 

 paragraph on "Spring," suggest that the spring and fall migrations of 

 individuals follow the same route. This is probably not true of the 

 species everywhere. In the Connecticut Valley, Mass., it seems to be 

 very irregular in its appearance from one year to another, and more 

 common in the spring than in the fall; Bagg and Eliot (1937) "expect 

 to see twenty to thirty individuals each May and only five or six each 

 autumn." Actual count was kept for the first time in 1936 by 

 Mr. Eliot; in May he saw over 50 olivebacks in Northampton alone; 

 in the fall seven. In 1937 he saw about 30 in the period May 9-24. 



Miss Stanwood tells me that "the olive-backed thrush remains until 

 the wild fruits grow scarce, near the middle or last of September," in 

 Maine. It passes through Massachusetts mainly in September, but 

 some are seen in October ; while with us it is associated with the gray- 

 cheeked thrush, from which it can be distinguished with difficulty, and 

 it may be found almost anywhere in open woodland glades, in the 

 shrubbery along streams or along country roads, and often in the 

 shrubbery of gardens or parks, wherever it can find a little cover. 



E. S. Dingle tells me that the earliest date of arrival in South Caro- 

 lina was September 13, 1916. Paul Griswold Howes (1914) has pub- 

 lished an interesting paper on the fall migration of the olive-backed 

 thrush, as observed at Stamford, Conn., from which I quote: "The 

 night voices fill the September air; weird, almost awesome are these 

 whistles of the migrating thrushes, guided by some unknown power 

 through thousands of miles of space to their winter home in the tropics. 

 It is thrilling indeed when one hears the sound high in the air and far 

 in the distance. Gradually it comes closer as the bird flies steadily 

 southward. As it passes, unseen, directly over head, again the cry 

 floats down to earth and a fainter answering call in the north, tells one 

 of a companion or perhaps a mate. Thus the voices echo back and 

 forth across the sky from evening 'till early morn, when the birds 



