THE VARIED THRUSH. 253 
Old nests are common; and groups of half a dozen in the space of a single 
acre are evidently the consecutive product of a single pair of birds. 
There is a notable division of territory among these Thrushes. As a rule, 
they maintain a distance of half a mile or so from any other nesting pair. 
In two instances, however, Mr. Brown found nests within three hun- 
dred yards of neigh- 
bors. 
When one ap- 
proaches the center 
OigeceeLeschy Gc mmubile 
brooding female 
slips quietly from 
the nest and joins 
her mate in denounc- 
ing the intruder. 
The birds flit rest- 
lessly from branch 
to branch, or from 
log to log, uttering 
repeatedly a stern 
tsook, which is al- 
most their sole re- 
course. If the nest 
is discovered and ex- 
amined, the birds 
will disappear  sil- 
env amd et lie 
chances are that they 
will never again be 
Photo by 
e, he ¢ hor. 
seen in that  lo- ieee ator 
Taken at Glacier. 
cality. 
A nest found on 
May toth, with two eggs, was revisited on the 12th. It was saddled at 
a point ten feet out on a leaning hemlock, which jutted from the river 
bank over the roaring Nooksack. The prominence of the situation, in 
this instance, proved the owner’s undoing. An Owl had evidently snatched 
her up on the previous night, the first of her maternal duty; for the nest 
and the neighboring foliage were strewn with feathers. Yet so suitly had 
the marauder executed his first coup that not an egg was broken. The 
eggs were three in number, subovate, of a slightly greenish blue, beauti- 
fully and heavily spotted—one might almost say blotched—with rufous, 
the handsomest, Mr. Brown says, ever seen. 
NEST AND EGGS OF VARIED THRUSH. 
