Plate LXVIII. 



Fig. 4. 8IURUS MOTACILLA-Large-billed Water Thrush. 



"Common summer resident, but of irregular distribution. Arrives about the middle of April or 

 earlier, and departs in August. 



"The Large-billed Water Thrush is one of the birds which is not uniformly distributed, either when 

 migrating or breeding. In general, it may be said that as we approach the northern limit of the range 

 of a species, the individuals representing it become fewer, and, during the breeding season, are only to 

 be found in such localities as are pre-eminently suited to their taste and wants. This appears to be true 

 in this State of the present species, the Yellow-throated, Prairie, and Pine-creeping Warblers, White-eyed 

 Vireo, Whip-poor-will, and perhaps others. When on their migrations they seem to pass rapidly from 

 one breeding locality to another, seldom making a stop at intermediate points. 



"In the immediate vicinity of this city, I know the Large-billed Water Thrush only as a rare 

 migrant, appearing sometimes as early as April 13th, and with the Yellow-throated Warblers, the first 

 of the family to arrive. They are then found in wet woodlands and along the muddy wooded banks of 

 streams, never in open places, as is the frequent habit of the Small-billed Water Thrush, nor are they 

 as silent as that species. 



"The Large-billed Water Thrush was first introduced as an Ohio bird in my list of 1861, on the 

 authority of Mr. John Kirkpatrick, who informed me that it was found in the vicinity of Cleveland. Dr- 

 Kirtland and Mr. Read had confounded the two species. Mr. Langdon gives it as a rather common sum- 

 mer resident in the vicinity of Cincinnati, and I have seen specimens from Sandusky. My first acquaint- 

 ance with the bird in the breeding season was made June 19, 1875, in the 'glen' at Yellow Springs. 

 Here I found them abundant, and busily engaged in feeding half-grown Cowbirds. I afterwards found 

 them in the ravines above Worthington, in this county, where they were equally abundant, and making 

 preparations for nesting. Here they were indiscriminately in trees, on the ground, or wading on the level 

 slaty bottoms of the shallow brooks. Frequently they mounted to the upper branches of high trees over- 

 hanging the ravines, whence their loud and mellow song echoed along the winding banks with surpassing- 

 sweetness." 



The above is quoted from Vol. IV of "Geological Survey of Ohio." 



LOCALITY : 



Mr. Brewster describes a nest of this species as follows: "The nest taken with the female parent, 

 May 6th, contained six eggs, which had been incubated a few clays. The locality was the edge of a 

 lonely forest pool in the depths of a cypress swamp near White River (Indiana). A large tree had fallen 

 into the shallow water, and the earth adhering to the roots, formed a nearly vertical, but somewhat 

 irregular wall, about six feet in height and ten or twelve in width. Near the upper edge of this, in a 

 cavity among the finer roots, was placed the nest, which, but for the situation and peculiar character of its 



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