118 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 84. 



THE OLIVE-BACKED THRUSH {Hylocichla ustulaia 

 sivainsoni) AT HIS SUMMER HOME. 



BY CORDELIA J. STAN WOOD. 



. A more or less irregular line of woodland — evergreen^ 

 hardwood, mixed growth — stretches from Trenton, Maine., 

 on Frenchmans Bay, opposite Bar Harbor, along the Union; 

 River, almost to the post office in the city of Ellsworth. 

 When the Thrushes appear in the spring, they come from the 

 direction of the river, through the cool, damp, mossy aisles- 

 of these woodlands. As the time draws near for the coming 

 of the Thrushes, I take the overgrown footways that mark 

 old woodroads, walk toward the river, and listen with bated 

 breath for the first notes of the Thrushes — the Hermit, the 

 Veery, the Olive-backed.^ 



The Hermit {Hylocichla guttata palla^i) the first to arrive, 

 usually announces his presence by an early morning hymn^ 

 He comes about the middle of April, when the ground is still 

 slightly frozen at sunrise, when a thin coat of ice silvers every 

 pool, when a white frost glistens on each sere field, and the 

 city of Ellsworth slumbers in a thick, white mist, from which 

 the steeples and roofs just emerge. Sometimes he is over- 

 taken, several days after his arrival, by one of those cruet 

 sleet and hail storms that coats everything in ice, and makes^ 

 life very hard for our tired, hungry migrant. The Hermit 

 is with us about a month before our other two resident 

 Thrushes, the Veery and the Olive-backed, appear. One year 

 the Olive-backed calls before the Veery, the following year 

 the order of their coming may be reversed. May 8 (1913), 

 very early in the morning, I heard two or more Veeries in 

 excellent voice. Aly earliest record for the call note of the 

 Olive-backed Thrush is May 15 (1911). 



Although at the time of the arrival of these latter birds, the 

 foliage is beginning to appear on the trees, the catkins of 

 some of the alders, willows, and birches are in full bloom, 



^ The riennit Thrush at Home. By Cordelia J. Stnnwood. Na- 

 ture and Culture. May, 1913. 



