THE NIDOLOGIST 
tom. The bowl is three and one-half 
inches deep, and is lined to the top with 
the threshed-out tips of the rice. The 
bottom is covered with short pieces of 
broad grass, none of the fine wire grasses 
being used in the make-up, as in the Red- 
wings’ nests. It measures six inches 
across the top on the outside, and three by 
two and one-half inches across the bowl in- 
side. The whole resembles a roughly-woven 
inverted cone. 
My notes of ’91 show that the first set 
was taken May 25, and consisted of four 
fresh eggs. May 27, obtained several of 
three and four each, fresh, to advanced in 
incubation. A set of four eggs was found 
June 6, too far advanced to take. ‘I‘he last 
note is June 12, when I took several sets, 
fresh to advanced, of three and four each. 
Saw several nests with young birds, but 
none with more than four. 
I think there is usually one more note iu 
their song than in that of the Red-wing’s, 
which consists of but three,“kong-ker-eee.”’ 
A chorus of ‘‘kong-kong-ker-ee, kong-kong- 
ker-ee,’’coming from the borders of a marsh, 
while the‘‘pum-pum’”’ of the Bittern reaches 
your ears from the distance,and the whistle 
of the Rails as they dart here, now there, 
and the ‘‘kong-ker-ee’’ of the Red-wings, all 
about you, make upa grand chorus (per- 
haps not harmony) that makes one wish the 
early morning hours were longer. 
Gro. A. MorrRIson. 
Lake Fox, Wis. 
— > 
Wood Thrush. 
Pais the Wood Thrush is com- 
paratively speaking a common wood- 
land bird, still very little is recorded 
in the Ornithological papers about, or is it 
given the credit due it. From the earliest 
recollection of my boyhood days when I 
first began to cultivate my love for the 
feathered friends around my home, the 
Wood Thrush has been my favorite song- 
ster. Formerly there existed, a few miles 
north of Detroit, a piece of rather low tim- 
ber land bordering and intersected by a de- 
lightful rippling stream. Here in this 
locality I became acquainted with many of 
our songsters, and here it was that I 
learned to love 7urdus mustelinus. Many 
an exquisite May morning have I pulled 
out of bed with the first streaks of early 
light and driven out to the woods in order 
to hear this divine singer break out into 
IIl5 
song to greet the morn. ‘The violets and 
spring beauties nodded their dainty heads 
and blossomed throughout the woods, while 
overhead their representative of the air 
filled the glades with music. ‘The Wood 
Thrush here seemed at his best, and his 
mild ethereal bell notes, seemed to vibrate 
and ring through the glades like the notes 
of some great organ. Not often would I 
see the author of all the music, but his 
notes seemed to shame the lesser songsters 
into silence, and when he sang they listened 
in company with me. When I did dis- 
cover the author perched in a sappling or 
leafy bush, he would eye me in his open 
honest manner and deliberately fly away 
and not skulk like the Veery and kindred 
Thrushes. ‘The Wood Thrush seems to be 
musical in all kinds of weather, rainy as 
well as sunny. I think in Wilson’s fine 
description of this bird nothing is so fine and 
pleasing as his note: ‘‘Even in wet, 
dark and gloomy weather when scarcely a 
single chirp is heard from any other bird, 
the clear notes of the Wood Thrush thrill 
through the drooping woods from morning 
until night; and it may be truly said the 
sadder the day the sweeter his song.’’ 
Will I ever forget the 8th of June, 1889, a 
sobbing, soft kind of a day when the rain 
fell gently and the verdant world seemed to 
absorb and welcome it with open mouths 
after the hot drouth of May. I wandered 
out to my favorite woods in my mackintosh 
and spent the day. One songster I remem- 
ber in particular perched on a mossy log 
facing me with his creamy spotted breast 
swelled out, and how his notes filled and 
revibrated through the woods. I never 
have heard the Hermit’s professed supe- 
riority to the Wood Thrush, but until I do 
I wit! side in with Langille, who terms him 
the Beethoven among birds. 
In his nesting he usually selects a small 
sapling or leafy bush, some times by the 
border of a stream. ‘The nest is an affair 
of sticks, twigs and leaves plastered to- 
gether with mud, and well lined. Once I 
found a nest of this species decorated with 
green leaves. ‘Truly a sylvan retreat 
worthy of the owner! The eggs are three 
or four, of a beautiful blue. The Blue Jay 
seems rather partial to Thrushs’ eggs here, 
according to the number of depleted nests 
I find with broken eggs. 
The favorite time to hear the Wood 
Thrush at his best is when the twilight is 
beginning to settle down upon the woods, 
