I02 Bird -Lore 



distance and constructed a second, that the accident had befallen the bird so 

 lately that she had barel}' succeeded in completing the new nest. I was exceed- 

 ingly anxious to know if I had been wise enough to read a traged\- and its sequel 

 aright from these few facts, so I visited the knoll each day; the fourth day, there 

 was the egg of a Hermit Thrush. Two days later, at noon, the bird was sitting 

 on three eggs. On the twelfth day, July lo, two birds were out of the eggs by 

 noon. They were large birds, covered with a sparse growth of burnt-umber 

 down about one-fourth long. On the fifth day, the birds had quills on the wings 

 and pin-feathers on the back. The eleventh morning, July 20, the last nestling 

 left the nest in the afternoon. 



A space for the nest was hollowed in a bit of decayed root or log, under a fir 

 tree, beside a stump in the top of a knoll, overgrown with bird wheat moss and 

 boulder fern. For foundation, the nest had a mass of dead wood, dead leaves, 

 moss, roots, and fern stipes; for lining, pine needles and black hair-like plant 

 fiber. 



The diameters within were two and one-half inches by three and one-fourth 

 inches, depth three inches. The thickness of the walls at the top was one inch, 

 at the bottom one-half inch. Nearly all these measurements were taken before 

 the eggs were laid. 



June 2, 1908, I flushed from the nest a most gentle Hermit Thrush, incubat- 

 ing four eggs. 



June 7, there were three nestlings in the nest, burnt-orange in color, marked 

 with long, very dark-brown down. On the third day the eyelids of the young 

 Thrushes were parted in the center one-sixteenth of an inch. The feather tracts 

 were of the hue of gunpowder, the spaces between the feather tracts a tone of 

 burnt-orange. 



The fifth day the eyes of the Noung birds were well open; \-er}- dark brown 

 pin -feathers were beginning to show through all the feather spaces; the pin- 

 feathers were longest in the center of the tract and shortest on the edges; they 

 looked, at this stage, like horse-hairs slightly overlapping each other. 



The sixth day the quills were longer and fuller. The seventh day the tips 

 of the quills and pin-feathers had burst, so that in the morning the tips of the 

 speckled, olive-brown and golden-buffy feathers showed. 



The tenth day the young Thrushes opened their mouths wide for food, as 

 usual, at my approach, but on the eleventh day, the nestlings did not attempt 

 to open their beaks for food in the morning or afternoon. This was the first time 

 they showed any indication of fear. 



On the twelfth day. The young Thrushes were gone by 9 o'clock this morn- 

 ing. The nest was immaculate, save for the quill scales that filled the inter- 

 stices. It was placed in a knoll, under a miniature fir, just ofif a street not much 

 frequented, in an open sjjace in a growth where firs, pines and spruces pre- 

 dominate. 



Generallv, I find mv nests of tlie Hermit Thrush Ijv turning over trees and 



