THE WILLOW THRUSH. ; SS 
No. 92. 
WILLOW THRUSH. 
A. O. U. No. 556a. Hylocichla fuscescens salicicola Ridgway. 
Synonym.—WeEsTERN WILSON ‘THRUSH. 
Description.—Adult: Above, dull tawny-brown, uniform; wing-quills shad- 
ing to brownish fuscous on inner webs; below white, the throat, except in the 
upper middle, and the breast, tinged with cream-buff, and spotted narrowly and 
sparingly with wedge-shaped marks of the color of the back; sides and flanks 
more or less tinged with brownish gray; sides of head buffy-tinged, with mixed 
brown, save on whitish lores; bill dark above, light below; feet light brown. 
Adult male, length 7.25-7.75 (184.2-196.9) ; wing 3.93 (100) ; tail 2.95 (75); bill 
.55, (14); tarsus 1.18 (30). 
Recognition Marks.—Sparrow to Chewink size; dull cinnamon brown 
above; breast buffy, lightly spotted. 
Nesting.—WNest: of leaves, bark-strips, weed-stems and trash, lined with 
rootlets; placed at height of two or three feet in thickets or, rarely, on ground. 
Eggs: 3-5, plain greenish blue, not unlike those of the Robin. Avy. size, .go x .65 
(22.8x 16.5). Season: first or second week in June; one brood. 
General Range.—Western interior districts of United States and Canada; 
breeding from North Dakota and Manitoba west to interior of British Columbia 
and southward to Nevada, Utah and Colorado; southward during migrations thru 
Arizona, etc., to Brazil, also thru the Mississippi Valley and, casually, eastward. 
Range in Washington.—Summer resident in the hilly districts of north- 
western Washington,—Blue Mountains( ?). 
Authorities—Howe, Auk, XVII. Jan. 1900, p. 19 (Spokane). T(?). J. 
Specimens.—Prov. 
THE Willow Thrush shares with its even more retiring cousin, the 
Olive-back, the forests of the northwestern portion of the State. Here it may 
be found in the seclusion of spring draws and alder bottoms, or in the miscel- 
laneous cover which lines the banks of the larger streams. It is confined 
almost entirely to the vicinity of water, and spends much of its time on the 
damp ground poking among the fallen leaves and searching the nooks and 
corners of tree-roots. Since the bird is but a flitting shade, one cannot easily 
determine its color-pattern, and must learn rather the range and quality of its 
notes. ‘The bird is, rather than has, a voice, an elusive voice, a weird and won- 
derful voice. And only after one has heard the song, with its reverberant, 
sweet thunder, and its exquisitely diminishing cadences, as it wells up at even- 
tide from some low thicket, may one be said to know the Willow Thrush. 
For the most part the bird betrays interest in your movements by a sub- 
dued yewi, a note of complaint and admonition, variously likened to a grunt, 
a bleat, or a nasal interjection. Not infrequently this becomes a clearly 
