Wood Thrush. 217 



Simeon Pease Cbeny, writing upon " Bird Music," in 

 the Century Magazine for June, 1888, says concerning the 

 song of the wood thrush: ^'This is probably tt»e most 

 popuhir singer of all the thrushes. He may be heard at 

 any hour of the day during the mating and nesting season, 

 but his best performances are at morning and evening. 

 While his melodies are not so varied as those of the brown 

 or those of the hermit thrush, they are exquisite, the 

 quality of the tone being indescribably beautiful and 

 fascinating." The favorite position of the songster is near 

 the top of the larger willows, or cottonwoods, or any of 

 the larger trees, from which his warbles ring forth with the 

 clearness of silver bells, repeated at intervals for many 

 minutes. In the most favored resorts in the river bottoms, 

 several voices can generally bo heard at the same time, and 

 the effect is comparable to the ringing of several neigh- 

 boring church bells, correspondingly reduced in loudness 

 and volume. Among the bushes and lower growth the 

 wood thrush has other notes, the most usual one being a 

 single "quiert," uttered in one syllable, and used as an 

 alarm note. I have frequently heard two individuals, 

 who were some distance apart, carry on an animated con- 

 versation by using something like the syllable " quee," 

 repeated four or five times very rapidly, a peculiar call 

 unlike that of any other bird of my acquaintance. 



In regard to the food habits of the wood thrush, I refer 

 to the reports of Prof. S. A. Forbes, who states that this 

 species seems to do more good and less harm than the 

 robin, catbird, and brown thrasher, having the lowest 

 fruit ratio and eating the highest number of insects, with 

 only the average of predaceous species. Its advances, 

 therefore, are to be cordially encouraged by the gardener 

 and farmer — a fact which must be especially agreeable to 

 every lover of bird music who has learned to recognize 

 the full, clear, rich, and exquisite strains of this songster. 



In its nidification the wood thrush indicates the rela- 

 tionship existing between it and the robin, their nests and 

 eggs being quite similar. The eggs of the wood thrush 

 can be distinguished from those of the robin only by their 

 smaller size, but the differences between the nests are 

 more apparent when examined in detail. The wood thrush 



