FAMILY Turdide. 
have employed a different syllabic form for the rise. Nevere 
theless Mr. Torrey’s description is delightfully happy—T 
stood on the piazza while they sang in full chorus. At 
least six of them were in tune at once. Wee-o, wee-o, wee-o, 
tit-ti wee-o, —something like this the music ran, with many 
variations; a most ethereal sound, at the very top of the 
scale, but faint and sweet; quite in tune also with my mood, 
for I had just come in from gazing long at the sunset, with 
Lake Champlain like a sea of gold for perhaps a hundred 
miles, and a stretch of the St. Lawrence showing far away 
in the north.’ And again, ‘‘The moment the road entered 
the ancient forest, the Olive-backs began to make them- 
selves heard, and, half-way up the mountain path the Gray- 
cheeks (Bicknell’s) took up the strain and carried it on to 
its heavenly conclusion. A noble processional!’’* 
Olive-backed This Thrush is far more -retiring than 
Thrush the Hermit Thrush. His home is prefera- 
a bly within the spruce or deciduous forests 
igiocwiion siy.0! the north, and usually at a considerable 
lata swainsoni altitude. In coloring he nearly resembles 
L.7.o0inches the Hermit, but the tail is olive-colored 
May 2oth like the back, and there is a conspicuous 
ring of buff about the eye. Upper parts brown olive 
including wings and tail. Under parts white with a 
suffusion of buff; spots on throat similar to those of the~ 
Hermit; round spots on breast at the tips of feathers; 
sides of the face from the bill backward clear buff with 
brown streaks. Female similarly marked. Nest built 
in low bushes or small trees, and situated about four 
feet or less from the ground; it is woven of coarse 
grasses, mosses, leaves, strips of bark, and fine rootlets. 
This Thrush appears in the middle States later in spring 
and earlier in fall than the Hermit; its breeding range is 
the same as his; it winters in the West Indies and Cen- 
tral and South America. ; . 
The song of Swainson’s Thrush is one of the most 
charming examples of a harmony in suspension which 
it is possible to find in all the realm of music. The bird 
* Vide The Footpath Way, pp. 19 and 94. 
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