68 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 95 



per breast is buffy ,and the lower breast and belly are silvery 

 white. The breast is heavily spotted with black. The black 

 scollaps on the buffy sides of the young are so lightly pen- 

 ciled on the feathers that they have the effect of a gray tinge. 

 The throat is lined with yellow. The eye is hazel in the light, 

 and black in shadow. The legs and feet are a mixture of 

 flesh-color and brown-gray. The upper mandible is gray- 

 brown, the lower manjble flesh-colored, save the tip, which is 

 gray-brown. The tail is about one inch long. The ■ whole 

 eff'ect of the coloring is soft, rich, and elegant. 



When the three Thrushes went to the woods for the first 

 time, they were at first attracted by the sounds of nature and 

 the motions of the foliage. Soon one went to the boiling 

 spring and walked into a little pool. Evidently the water 

 was not fresh enough for he threaded the rill that issued from 

 the spring almost to its source before he took a bath between 

 the rocks. His crest stood erect with delight as he splashed 

 the water about. He had such fun that he came back to bathe 

 several times. Another Thrush circled around and perched 

 high in a tree, but the baby did nothing, just stood still. 



At last I put him in a shallow pool and rippled the water 

 with my hand. He shook his feathers as if taking a bath, and 

 dipped his beak, but was afraid to sit down in the water. He 

 went on taking imaginary baths on ever}' little mudbank, but 

 refused to wet a feather. 



Later in the afternoon the Thrushes were feeding around 

 the spring, when suddenly the cows came running down the 

 path. Two of the Thrushes disappeared like a flash into the 

 underbrush, but the baby sat on a log. A cow came up and 

 smelled of him, and for auglit I know would have eaten him, 

 had I not run at her brandishing a long stick. 



In a few hours we were in the house again. The Thrushes 

 were ravenously hungry and very active on the. wing. It 

 was a joy to see them move. They floated around the room 

 like bits of thistle down. One Thrush flew from the box of 

 ants' eggs, when I went to feed the birds, and pecked at the 



