442 Roosevelt Wild Life Bulletin 



on singing. In many instances the nests, are quite unconcealed. The 

 young hatch about July I and are fed in the nest by the parents for 

 two weeks. The presence of an Olive-back in a district is revealed by 

 the alarm call at nightfall, — a short, gurgled note like guut or whut 

 heard chiefly toward dusk, and also about its nest when disturbed. 

 The alarm note is a sure means of identifying this Thrush. 



Wilson's Thrush ; Veery. Hylocichla fuscescens fnscescens 

 (Steph.) 



Length 7.5. Back, wings and tail cinnamon-brown ; breast buff with 

 faint marks ; surface below, pure white. 



The Veery is an inhabitant of boggy clearings, or wherever 

 there are open sphagnum woods. It favors the mossy portions of 

 an ill-drained open knoll, where upturned roots have left cavities 

 for sphagnum growths, with great clumps of cinnamon fern spread- 

 ing in the sunshine among clumps of small conifers, hardwoods and 

 bog shrubs. In the neighborhood of Barber Point, up Sucker Brook, 

 three sharply defined areas are illustrative of the habitat preferences 

 of the local Thrushes. The Burn, with its aspen-fire cherry-birch 

 association, is a characteristic haunt of the Olive-backed Thrush ; 

 alongside the Burn, and abruptly joining it, is a bog forest, the home 

 of the Veery; and alongside the Bog, by a change as abrupt as the 

 other, is a strip of dark virgin forest where the Hermit Thrush 

 dwells. 



The singing of the Veery is as distinctive as that of either the 

 Olive-back or the Hermit. Its peculiar quality is its vibrant char- 

 acter, like the sound of a fine piano wire set in vibration and dying 

 away of its own accord. The phrases of the Hermit end some- 

 what abruptly, while those of the Veery vibrate lower and fainter 

 to the utmost diminuendo. For close comparison I would say that 

 the songs of the Hermit are identified by their mellow, flute-like 

 tones ; those of the Olive-backed Thrush by their ringing, bell-like 

 quality; and the Veery's by their resemblance to the tones of a fine, 

 taut wire vibrated under a bow and allowed to come to rest. 



Glover Allen says of Wilson's Thrush in Xew Hampshire that 

 " numbers follow back the little side streams well up on to the 

 mountainsides, so that it is possible in some places to hear the 

 Hermit, the Olive-backed and Wilson's Thrushes all singing at 

 once." This is in agreement with similar observations that I made 

 in 191 6 at Cranberry Lake, where all were present together. Allen's 

 description shows that the three species were occupying overlapping 

 habitats depending upon the vegetational association each preferred, 

 while my observations indicated that they were choosing customary 

 environments at the same altitude. 



The nest of Wilson's Thrush is generally made on the ground, on 

 a moss-covered log, or on a low humus-covered rock. One that I 

 examined was on a low flat rock amid moss and shrubs. It was 

 made chiefly of coarse fern stems, and was situated near the base 

 of a clump of ferns. Frequently the nest is made on a foundation 



