HINTS TO AUDUBON WORKERS.* 



FIFTY COMMON lU R 1) S AND HOW TO KNOW T H V. M . 



AFTER spending a morning with a flock 

 of warblers, trying to fix j'our glass on 

 the spot overhead where the leaves stirred, 

 striving to catch the colors of the cap and 

 wing bars of the little object fluttering 

 through the branches of a sapling three or 

 four rods away ; making your neck ache 

 looking for the vexatious flitters that hunt 

 in the tops of the highest trees; following 

 the hint of a faint c/iip here, while you keep 

 your eye on half a dozen of the rarer war- 

 blers that have just come in sight over there; 

 losing track of the whole flock as you stop 

 to study the habits of one; and then having 

 to trudge the woods over, straining your ears 

 till convinced that you are deaf, as you try 

 in vain to catch the chick-a-dce-dce of the 

 titmouse, or \.\\^ yank, yank, of the nuthatch, 

 which would give a clue to the whereabouts 

 of the runaways — after a morning spent in 

 this way, you will come back to the thrushes 

 with a feeling of restful relief. 



In the first place, they are large enough 

 to be seen, and give you the full benefit of 

 their size by keeping near the ground. 

 Then, if you find one, he is very likely to 

 stay, and let you inspect him. Moreover, 

 it is possible to identify him without know- 

 ing about each individual tail feather and 

 wing marking. Besides all this, you gain 

 self-respect in associating with the thrushes. 

 When you have chased after a flock of war- 

 blers half a day, only to find, on comparing 

 your notes with descriptions in the books, 

 that what you saw applies equally well to 

 three or four widely differing species, your 

 opinion of yourself dwindles unpleasantly. 

 Depressing doubts creep into your mind. 

 But with the thrushes the case is reversed. 

 You can write essays in your note book 

 while they sit and look at you. You can 

 arrange their songs in flats and sharps to 



♦Copyright, 1887, by Florence A. Merriam. 



suit your fancy, and they will not demur. 

 Indubitably, you must treat them with re- 

 spect. But whoever thought of making a 

 noise in the presence of a philosopher, or 

 taking liberties with a sage ? You feel flat- 

 tered by being allowed to watch them at a 

 distance, and when you get home and find 

 Ridgway's Manual ready to endorse your 

 identifications, your self-respect is restored. 

 Still, there are difficulties in discriminat- 

 ing between the thrushes, and I confess 

 they puzzled me at first. I began by study- 

 ing the wood, the hermit, and the tawny. 

 They all had brown backs, white speckled 

 breasts, and beautiful voices. But very 

 soon I found that they could be easily dis- 

 tinguished by variations in the shade of 

 brown on their backs, by size and arrange- 

 ment of the speckles, and by the quality of 

 their songs. 



In Coloring of Back. 

 The brown of the wood is reddest on head and 

 shoulders. 



The brown of the hermit is reddest on the tail. 

 The tawny has a uniformly tawny back. 



In Speckling of the Breast. 



The wood is heavily speckled with large brOwn 

 spots, except on a plain middle area. 



The hermit, in keeping with his smaller size, is 

 less heavily marked, with smaller speckles, and has 

 a plain area underneath, as well as on his neck and 

 breast. 



The tawny is only lightly spotted on the sides of 

 his breast, and has a tawny chin and throat. 



In Character of Song. 

 The wood has a loud, rich, broken song. 

 The hermit's resembles the wood's in quality, but 



is much superior. It has a trill inserted in each 



phrase. 



The tawny has a low sweet song consisting of a 



succession of trills, in descending scale. 



In many places the wood thrush is found 

 in the most open ground, and the hermit in 

 the densest forest, but during a cold snap 



