242 THE INVITATION. 



of the bobolink he makes a point of the fact that in 

 returning South in the fall they do not travel by night 

 as they do when moving North in the spring. In 

 Washington I have heard their calls as they flew over 

 at night for four successive autumns. As he devoted 

 the whole of a long life to the subject, and figured 

 and described over four hundred species, one feels a 

 real triumph on finding in our common woods a bird 

 not described in his work. I have seen but two. 

 Walking in the woods one day in early fall, in the 

 vicinity of West Point, I started up a thrush that was 

 sitting on the ground. It alighted on a branch a few 

 yards off, and looked new to me. I thought I had 

 never before seen so long-legged a thrush. I shot it, 

 and saw that it was a new acquaintance. Its pecul- 

 iarities were its broad, square tail ; the length of its 

 legs, which were three and three quarters inches from 

 the end of the middle toe to the hip-joint ; and the 

 deep uniform olive-brown of the upper parts, and the 

 gray of the lower. It proved to be the gray-cheeked 

 thrush (Turdus alicice), named and first described by 

 Professor Baird. But little seems to be known con- 

 cerning it, except that it breeds in the far North, even 

 on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. I would go a 

 good way to hear its song. 



The present season I met with a pair of them near 

 Washington, as mentioned above. In size this bird 

 approaches the wood-thrush, being larger than either 

 the hermit or the veery ; unlike all other species, no 

 part of ita plumage has a tawny or yellowish tinge 



