Staxwood — A Hermit Thrush Study 185 



When the Thrushes came to feed, they liked to perch on 

 my arms, head, or fly into my lap. They disliked being held 

 across the wings, and strenuously resisted being caught. 

 Every day they became more swift in their movements, more 

 sensitivs to sounds, and less dependent on the food supply 

 that I brought to them. 



I saw them pick up brown and green caterpillars, moths, 

 and ants, besides such food as I left on the ground for them 

 as spruce bud moths, grasshoppers, earthworms, ants' eggs, 

 wild pears and wdld strawberries. 



A few days later, after I began to leave the Thrushes out 

 nights, there came a severe rain storm. I was able to visit 

 the Thrushes but twice that day. I found them dry save the 

 tips of their tail feathers and not very hungry. The follow- 

 ing day I carried food to them three times. On one of these 

 trips, a little Thrush came to meet me, dripping from his 

 bath in the spring. Although the feeding tree was not more 

 than six yards from the wire fence that separated the woods 

 from the open pasture and the spring, I never knew the 

 Thrushes to come through the wire fence when anyone was at 

 the spring. 



They now ate so rapidly that it was awkward for them to 

 open their mouths sufficiently to take steak from the scissors, 

 and there was danger of cutting their mouths or throats. A 

 mouthful or two sufficed and they darted away. They were 

 also extremely quiet and started and listened at every sound. 



The Thrushes were so w^ell able to care for themselves 

 that it seemed needlessly cruel to toll them to a certain spot 

 with food where animals of prey might lie in wait for them. 

 My frequent visits, also, kept them from their kind. Their 

 parents drank and bathed at this same spring. I did not visit 

 the feeding spot again. I never saw or heard of the Thrush- 

 es again. 



I have lived with several Thrush families and I do not hesi- 

 tate to affirm that this experiment might not have been so 

 successful with all of them. Most young Thrushes when 

 tamed, particularly when excessively petted, loose all instinct 



