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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



woodland is silent save for the occasional ecstatic out- 

 burst of an ovenbird, hurling itself above the trees, the 

 clear tranquil notes of the hermit will move even the 

 most stolid. Beginning low, like the distant dripping 

 of some cool spring, the singer runs lightly up the scale 



A BLUEBIRD IN THE ORCHARD 



Bluebirds and apple blossoms are always associated. It is well that they 

 should be well for us, well for the birds, and well for the orchard. 



until it touches the highest chords ; a still higher note, a 

 trill, and then silence. Soon the low, liquid notes are 

 heard once more, as the bird moves nearer, and the song 

 is repeated again and again, not hurriedly, but with all 

 the leisure and solemnity that a finished production re- 

 quires. All nature is hushed and seems to listen to the 

 voice that expresses so well the purity, the serenity, the 

 mystery of the twilight in the forest. 



The wood thrush and the veery are but slightly in- 

 ferior to the hermit in their songs and in most places 

 are much better known, for they often take up their 

 abodes in city parks or about shaded lawns. The veery 

 requires moist woodlands with undergrowth in which to 

 place its nest, but the wood thrush is often content in an 

 orchard or along shaded streets like the robin. The 

 song of the wood thrush is somewhat like that of the 

 hermit, but the phrases are shorter and the notes less 

 clear. The veery's song, on the other hand, is quite 

 different. Rich and clear like the songs of the other 

 thrushes, it consists of a single continuous warble like 

 the syllables, wee-o, wee-o, wee-o, given on a descending 

 spiral. The veery has fewer and less conspicuous spots 

 on its breast than the hermit, but the wood thrush has 

 its clear white breast covered with large dark spots. 

 Moreover, it can be distinguished also by the fact that 

 its head is much brighter than its back. The veery win- 

 ters in northern South America, but reaches the northern 

 United States the last of April, somewhat earlier than 



the wood thrush, although the latter winters from south- 

 ern Mexico to Central America. 



The olive-backed and gray-cheeked thrushes are less 

 well known than the others. Wintering in South Amer- 

 ica and nesting in the coniferous forests of the North, 

 they are seen in the United States only as transients in 

 the spring and fall, except in the mountains of New 

 York and New England, where they nest at altitudes 

 over 2,500 feet. They are both uniformly darker than 

 the other thrushes and can be distinguished from each 

 other, in good light, by the fact that in the olive-backed, 

 the eye ring and cheeks are washed with buffy. The 

 sub-species of the gray-cheeked thrush which nests 

 south of the St. Lawrence, is somewhat smaller than the 

 northern bird and has been named the Bicknell's thrush. 



The Townsend's solitaire of the Rocky Mountain re- 

 gion is similar to the hermit thrush in its habits, living 

 alone in the coniferous forests whose silences are broken 

 only by the beautifully clear notes of this bird. The 

 solitaire is a dark gray bird, about the size of a bluebird, 

 with a white eye ring, white wing bars and white tips to 

 the outer tail feathers. It builds a rough nest under a 

 shelving bank and, unlike the other thrushes, lays gray- 

 ish-white eggs spotted with brown. 



The varied thrush is a strikingly marked bird of the 

 Northwest, ranging in summer from Alaska to the 

 mountains of northern California and wintering from 

 Washington to Lower California. It is a bird about the 

 size of a robin, rusty brown beneath, the throat crossed 



AN INSECT ELIMINATOR 

 A box full of bluebirds will do a great deal toward ridding the garden of 

 pests The box should measure 5x5x8 inches, with a 2-inch hole four 

 inches from the bottom on one side. 



by a blackish necklace, and dark bluish-slate above. It 

 is ordinarily a rather shy bird, but on its winter journeys 

 it frequently comes into gardens where it can find the 

 berries of the California holly or of the manzanita. 



