62 PACIFIC COAST AVIFAUNA [No. i. 



found feeding on juniper berries on May 20th, and within three days the familiar 

 robin notes had become a frequent sound from the spruce woods. On May 28th I 

 found many robins on the bare slopes of the Jade Mountains at snow-line, feeding 

 on last year's blueberries, which the receding snow was leaving uncovered. The 

 native name for this bird is Sing'uk-lo'b-look'. 



Hesperocichla ncrvia (Gmel.). 

 Varied Thrush. 

 The Varied Thrush proved to be an abundant summer resident of the Kowak 

 Valley, and was observed in every tract of spruces visited. In the fall of '98, it 

 remained common until the last of August, though at that season the birds were 

 quiet and of secretive habits. They were then feeding almost exclusively on 

 cranberries and blueberries. Two juveniles taken on August 21st are in the midst 

 of their first moult. In an adult female taken on September ist, the fall moult is 

 completed. The last V^aried Thrushes, two in number, were seen on vSeptember 

 4th. The following spring its arrival in the neighborhood of our winter camp was 

 noted on May 21st, when the twanging notes of the males were heard several 

 times in the morning and evening. The next day they had arrived in full force 

 and were to be seen and heard throughout the spruce woods. The snow had by 

 this date nearly all disappeared, though the rivers and lakes were still covered 

 with ice. The food of the Varied Thrushes at this time consisted largely of the 

 cranberries and blueberries which were left from the previous summer's crop, and 

 had been preserved beneath the winter snows. For a few days the birds were 

 quite lively for being of the thrush tribe, which are usually of a quiet demeanor. 

 When not feeding on the ground in one of the fruitful openings in the forest, 

 they would be seen in wild pursuit of one another, either courting or quarrelling. 

 The males were often seen in fierce combat; that is, fierce for a thrush. Of course 

 some female ensconsed in a thick evergreen in the vicinity was the cause of the 

 duel. I never saw just how a quarrel would commence. The swift pursuit would 

 follow a tortuous route around and about, twisting among the close-standing trees 

 and across openings, so rapidly as to be difficult to follow with the eye. The J7?ia/c 

 would be a brief scrimmage among the thick foliage of a spruce, with a clatter of 

 fluttering wings and a few sharp squeals like a robin's. They would fall slowly 

 through the branches to the ground, when the contestants would separate, panting 

 and puffing out different parts of their plumage. The greatest apparent injur}" to 

 either of the belligerents would be the loss of two or three feathers, yet one of 

 them would consider himself fairly beaten and soon retire leaving the victor free 

 to' continue his courting. The song of the male Varied Thrush consists of a series 

 of peculiar notes uttered slowly and at rather long intervals. Each note is com- 

 plete in itself. It is a quavering twang, witn a faint rasping quality, the effect 

 resembling the twang of a banjo string on a cracked bridge. These strange notes 

 are produced on various keys, including a full octave, but the succession in which 

 they are .slowly uttered is irregular; a high note, then a low one, then a medium, 

 with apparently no set arrangement. I have heard a single Varied Thrush, from 

 his secluded perch near the top of a dark evergreen, thus sing for twenty minutes 

 at a time. It is an odd bird song, but when heard amid the solitude of the dark, 

 damp spruce woods, it has an indescribably melancholy qualit}', which sets one to 

 dreaming of far awa}^ home. Many a half-hour have I spent lying on my back on 



