OF NEW ENGLAND. 35 



ground, occasionally in swamps, but more often on sunny, 

 sloping, and shrubby banks near them. It is much like that 

 of the Wilson's Thrush (B), though usually rather larger, 

 coarser, and more loosely constructed. The Hermit Thrushes 

 often lay two sets of three or four eggs, one in the first week 

 of June, and one about a month later. Their eggs are very 

 much like those of the " Veeries" (B), but are larger, averag 

 ing -90 X "65 of an inch. They are light greenish blue, never 

 spotted. 



(c). In the woods about Boston (and of course in other 

 woods), whether swampy or dry, and also along the wooded 

 roadsides, from the middle of April until the first of May, one 

 may see a great number of Hermit Thrushes. During their 

 stay here, these birds, often in pairs, and sometimes in small 

 parties (a fact, which shows that their name is not altogether 

 an appropriate one), spend their time, for the most part in 

 silence, busied among the dead leaves and underbrush, occas- 

 ionally resting on a low perch, and rarely ftying far when dis- 

 turbed. They are quiet birds, and, though often easily ap- 

 proached, prefer those places where they are not likely to be 

 intruded upon. On leaving this State in the spring, they pass 

 on to northern New England and to Canada, where they spend 

 the summer and rear their young, being in some localities the 

 most common thrushes. In October, they return to Massachu- 

 setts in the course of their journey to their winter-homes in 

 the South, and a few linger until November is well advanced. 5 

 During their sojourn here in autumn, they frequent the ground 

 much less than in spring, and feed largely on various kinds of 

 berries, many of which they find in swamps. 



These birds are to be associated with October, when the 

 roads, hardened by frost, are neither muddy nor dusty, when 

 the paths through the woods are strewn with the soft fallen 



8 Mr. Maynard, writing of the Hermit Thrush in the " Naturalist's Guide," 

 says that he has " taken it in Coos County, New Hampshire, on October 31st, al- 

 though the ground was covered with snow, six inches deep at the time; also in 

 Oxford County, Maine, as late as November 6th." He adds that "a few undoubt- 

 edly breed here." 



