ORNriHOLOGIST 



OOLOGLST. 



$1.00 per 



Joseph M. Wade, Editor and Publisher. 

 Established, March, 1875. 



Single Copy, 

 10 Cents. 



VOL. VII. 



NORWICH, CONN., AUGUST, 1882. 



NO. 19. 



Large-billed Water Thrush. 



My first acquaintance with this bird was 

 about ten years ajro. I had then collected 

 most of the common Warblers and liecome 

 acquainted with their notes so well that 

 I reidily distinpj-nished anything' new. 

 Trampiuf^ through the woods about the 

 middle of April an unfamiliar note reached 

 me. and my attention was instantly attract- 

 ed by its clearness and strength. Careful- 

 ly and cautiously I approached the place 

 whence the song issued and traced out the 

 singer perched on the dead lower branch 

 of a Beech tree, and shaded by the branch- 

 es above, though there was no foliage on 

 the tree. It was a dark spot, for the trees 

 and shrubbery were thick, which was the 

 border of a swamp through which a small 

 stream slowlj' found its way. I was great- 

 ly charmed with the bird and thought I 

 had never heard so fine a singer. Shoot 

 him? Indeed I did not. I went home 

 and studied him up in " Samuel's N. E. 

 Birds," and he led me a little astray, so 

 that in my nest experience — finding the 

 nest and eggs — I simply recorded them 

 187. a liird which I had already taken in 

 the Fall and never dreamed that this was 

 another bird. There was a place where I 

 usually crossed the reservoir brook in go- 

 ing through the woods, by leaping from 

 one jutting rock to another, and thence to 

 the opposite shore. This was the narrow- 

 est jilace in the swamp, and right where I 

 crossed a tree had lieen prostrated by the 

 wind, leaving a shallow pool of water with 

 jutting stone, so that it was easy to pass 

 over. Ste]i]iing across this space from one 



st(me to another, looking more to my foot- 

 steps than anything else, I caught a 

 glimpse of a bird flitting across my path 

 like a shadow, and out of sight in an in- 

 stant. I did not see what it was. whence 

 it came, nor whither it went, but when the 

 next day the same thing occurred in the 

 same place, I was on the alert and saw 

 whence it came, and wasn't I delighted to 

 find snugly concealed in a little nook, the 

 cosy nest and five speckleil beauties I The 

 tree, whose roots had been removed, had 

 left a pool al)out eight by twelve feet, and 

 of course, the roots and mud that had once 

 filled this place, now stood perpendicular 

 like a wall against the side of the pool, 

 and there snugly hidden among those roots 

 was the nest, about eighteen inches above 

 the water. I have since found a number 

 of their nests, and three-foiu'ths of them 

 have been in similar situations ; some- 

 times a little higher above the water, but 

 ofteuer within a foot or less of it. The 

 nests are sometimes quite bulky, formed 

 of partially decayed leaves which I have 

 seen the femile draw from the mud and work 

 into the nest all dripping and soft with 

 the adhering mud. and which gives the 

 nest such a similarity to its surroundings 

 as to be scarcely noticeable The color of 

 the bird when snugly setting on the nest 

 adds to the illusion, and once hearing a 

 male sing near such an upturned tree. I 

 penetrated to the place and carefully 

 scanned the surface over without discover- 

 ing anything; while one week later hearing 

 a bird there again, I made another investi- 

 gation of the place to find in jjlain view a 

 nest with five vounar. These leaves when 



