BIRDS OF NELSON COUNTY. 



Species known to breed here are indicated by an i.Bterisfc (♦); those strongly 

 inferred to do so, by a dagger (t). 



Order PASSEBES : Perching Birds. 



Suborder OSCINES : Singing Birds. 



Family TURDID^: Thrushes. 



Genus Hylocichla. 



1. *Hylocicblsi mustelina (Gmel.). Wood Thrush. 



A common summer resident ; arrives about April 20tli ; 

 departs about October 15th. In quality of tone perhaps 

 the most gifted of our woodland vocalists. The song of 

 no bird that I know comes anywhere near the full, liquid 

 timbre of the note of the wood thrush. It is most often 

 heard during the last hours of the long spring and early 

 summer afternoons ; and he also, when in pursuit of the 

 "early worm," doubtless serenades the rising sun, but I 

 have never heard him at that unseasonable hour. The 

 song, however, lacks one important element of attractive- 

 ness—that is, quantity. The bird generally stops sing- 

 ing just as you prepare to give him your undivided atten- 

 tion. Their food is composed almost entirely of insects. 



