Three Tame Hermit Thrushes 69 



paper containing the steak. Another pecked at the cup that 

 held the water. 



The thirteenth day after I took them, I put them in an ever- 

 green woods above the spring for the day. When they re- 

 turned to the house, they ate so fast that I no longer dared 

 to feed them with the scissors. They pinched my fingers in 

 their beaks several times in spite of my efforts to be dexter- 

 ous. Their beaks w^ere so sensitive that although I thought 

 the floor was immaculate, the Thrushes constantly found dust 

 and hairs. They were not very hungry after their day out-of- 

 doors. I decided that they were ready to go to the woods. 

 Accordingly, the next morning, August 30, at 7 o'clock, I car- 

 ried a basin of fresh water to the wooded pasture above the 

 house where persons were not likely to find it, and freed the 

 little birds there. Beside the basin I put a supply of ants' 

 eggs and grasshoppers. 



The following morning I renewed the water, and the sup- 

 ply of food. I saw nothing of the young Thrushes and re- 

 frained from calling them. ^ Each day I renewed the supply 

 of food and changed the water. On the fourth day after the 

 return of the birds to the woods, a little Thrush alighted on 

 a bracken near me as I changed the water. He flew away 

 from me, but I think that I could have caught him, in time, 

 had not the undergrowth been so dense. September 14 I 

 came upon two Thrushes by the boiling spring that kept to- 

 gether. They flew up onto a high branch and called chuck! 

 as all Hermit Thrushes do. They seemed to haunt the local- 

 ity where the tame Thrushes were freed the first time. The^-e 

 was a third bird near. I was unable to see him distinctly. I 

 do not know whether he w^as a Thrush or not. 



Although persons came and went at this spring all day 

 where the Thrushes and Robins came to drink and bathe, no 

 one boasted of having seen a tame Thrush that perched on 

 his shoulder and begged for food. I thought that this fact 

 proved that my experiment was a success. 



