Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds 



woods often contain both birds, and tiiere is opportunity to note 

 just how much they differ. The Southern bird is slightly the 

 larger, possibly an inch ; it is more gray, and it lacks a few of the 

 streaks, notably on the throat, that plentifully speckle its Northern 

 counterpart; but the habits of both of these birds appear to be 

 identical. Only for a few days in the spring or autumn migra- 

 tions do they pass near enough to our homes for us to study 

 them, and then we must ever be on the alert to steal a glance at 

 them through the opera-glasses, for birds more shy than they 

 do not visit the garden shrubbery at any season. Only let them 

 suspect they are being stared at, and they are under cover in a 

 twinkling. 



Where mountain streams dash through tracts of mossy, 

 spongy ground that is carpeted with fern and moss, and over- 

 grown with impenetrable thickets of underbrush and tangles of 

 creepers — such a place is the favorite resort of both the water 

 thrushes. With a rubber boot missing, clothes torn, and temper 

 by no means unruffled, you finally stand over the Louisiana 

 thrush's nest in the roots of an upturned tree immediately over 

 the water, or else in a mossy root-belaced bank above a purling 

 stream. A liquid-trilled warble, wild and sweet, breaks the still- 

 ness, and, like Audubon, you feel amply rewarded for your pains, 

 though you may not be prepared to agree with him in thinking 

 the song the equal of the European nightingale's. 



Northern Water Thrush 



(Seiitrus noveboracensis) Wood Warbler family 



Called also: NEW YORK WATER THRUSH; AQUATIC 

 WOOD WAGTAIL ; AQUATIC THRUSH 



Length — 5 to 6 inches. A trifle smaller than the English sparrow. 



Male and Female — Uniform olive or grayish brown above. Pale 

 buff line over the eye. Underneath, white tinged with sul- 

 phur-yellow, and streaked like a thrush with very dark brown 

 arrow-headed or oblong spots that are also seen underneath 

 wings. 



Range — United States, westward to Rockies and northward 

 through British provinces. Winters from Gulf States south- 

 ward. 



Migrations — Late April. October. Summer resident. 



129 



