BIRDS OF NEW YORK 52 1 



have a dense ground cover of shrubs, moss-covered logs and thick herbage. 

 Here they nest among the ferns and low shrubbery. The nest is commonly 

 found on the ground or very near it, composed of leaves, strips of bark, 

 weed stalks, lined with rootlets. Between the lining and the outside of 

 the nest is usually a layer of well-rotted wood or mud. The eggs are com- 

 monly 4 in number, of a greenish blue color, very rarely spotted with brown 

 near the larger end. They average .88 by .66 inches in dimensions. The 

 nests with eggs are found from the 20th of May to the 10th of June, some- 

 times as late as the 30th of June. 



Chapman describes the Veery's song as a " weird ringing monotone 

 of blended alto and soprano notes. Neither notes nor letters can tell one 

 of its peculiar quality. If you can imagine the syllables vee-r-r-hu repeated 

 eight or nine times around a series of intertwining circles, the description 

 may enable you to recognize the song." The call of the Veery is a sharply 

 whistled pheeic, which is often heard during migration or when one enters 

 his favorite coverts, repeated over and over again as one journeys through 

 the woods or whistles in imitation of the bird. 



Hylocichla fuscescens salicicola Ridgway 

 Willow Thrush 

 Browner, less tawny, than Wilson thrush; spots on breast slightly darker; size 

 the same, or slightly smaller. (A. 0. U. no. 756a) 



This subspecies inhabits western North America, but straggles eastward in migra- 

 tion as far as New York (South Bristol, October 15, 1904, E. H. Eaton) and Connecti- 

 cut (Bishop, Connecticut Geol. and Nat. Hist. Sur. Bui. 20, p. 177). 



Hylocichla aliciae aliciae (Baird) 

 Gray-cheeked Thrush 



Plate 105 



Turdus aliciae Baird. Rep. Expl. & Surv. R. R. Pac. 1858. 9:217 

 Hylocichla aliciae aliciae A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 1910. p. 360. 

 No. 757 



aliciae, to Miss Alice Kennicott of Illinois 



Description. Upper parts olive brown, slightly darker than the Olive- 

 backed thrush; under parts whitish, spotted on the sides of the throat and 



