NEST AND EGGS OF THE HERMIT 33 



only one which nests at any considerable distance from the 

 ground and lays spotted eggs. And unless the Hermit has 

 changed its choice of a summer home since Wilson and 

 Audubon thought they had discovered its nest, it never bred 

 in the southerly regions where they thought it did. But their 

 mistake was not unnatural, since, singularly enough, neither of 

 these ornithologists knew the difference between the Olive- 

 backed and the Hermit Thrush a distinction erroneously said 

 by Dr. Brewer to have been first suggested by Professor Baird 

 in 1844, as Swainson had discriminated the two with perfect 

 accuracy, though under wrong names, in 1831. The manner 

 in which the nest of the Hermit Thrush is built, its situa- 

 tion, and the eggs, are all so similar to the Yeery's that one 

 must detect the shy parents .themselves before being sure 

 which has been found. The nest is built on the ground or 

 near it, generally in some low, secluded spot; no mud is used in 

 its composition, the whole fabric being a rather rude and inartis- 

 tic matting of withered leaves, weed-stalks, bark-strips, and 

 grasses the coarser and stiffer substances outside, the finer 

 fibres within. The cup is small in comparison with the whole 

 size, owing to the thickness of the walls and of the base. The 

 eggs are like those of the Kobin or Wood Thrush, in their uni- 

 form greenish-blue color, but smaller, measuring about niiie- 

 tenths of an inch in length by five-eighths in breadth ; being 

 thus not distinguishable from those of the Yeery. I have never 

 known of an instance, to my recollection, of the eggs being 

 spotted ; but so many birds which usually lay whole-colored 

 bluish eggs occasionally drop a set which are somewhat 

 speckled that I should not be surprised to find at any time a 

 Hermit Thrush's egg showing a few specks about the larger 

 end. 



Great injustice would be done were the Hermit's musical 

 powers overlooked in any sketch, however slight, of its life- 

 history. The earlier authors were evidently unaware of its 

 accomplishments, for its melody is lavished on the gloom of the 

 swamp, or lost in the darkening aisles of the forest, where 

 years passed by before the ear of the patient and toiling stu- 

 dent of nature was gladdened by the sweet refrain. Wilson 

 denies it song ; Audubon speaks of u its single plaintive note", 

 though he adds, perhaps upon information received from his 

 friend Dr. Pickering, that " its song is sometimes agreeable n . 

 Nuttall seems to have first recognized the power and sweet- 

 3 B c 



