Plate LXVIIL 



Fig. 10, HYLOCIOHLA UNALASCAE PALLASI-Hermit Thrush. 



The Hermit Thrush is not an uncommon migrant in April and October, and in limited parts of the 

 State it is an occasional summer resident. Dr. Brewer says: " The present species is found throughout 

 Eastern North America to the Mississippi, and breeds from Massachusetts to high Arctic regions. It is 

 only occasionally found breeding so far south as Massachusetts ; through which State it passes in its 

 spring migrations, sometimes as early as the 10th of April; usually reaching Calais, Maine, by the 15th 

 of the* same month. 



"It is a very abundant bird throughout Maine, where it begins to breed during the last week of 

 May, and where it also probably has two broods in a season. 



"The greater number appear to pass the winter in the Southern States; it being common in Florida, 

 and even occasionally seen during that season as far north as latitude 38° in Southern Illinois, according 

 to Ridgway." 



Mr. Chas. Dury, of Cincinnati, notes a nest and eggs of the Hermit Thrush taken near said city on 

 May 10, 1877, by Mr. G. Holterhoff' 



LOCALITY : 



Minot, writing about this species in "Land and Game Birds of New England," says: "In the 

 woods about Boston (and of course in other woods), whether swampy or dry, and also along the wooded 

 roadsides, from the middle of April until the first of May, one may see a great number of Hermit 

 Thrushes. During their stay here, these birds, often in pairs, and sometimes in small parties (a fact 

 which shows that their name is not altogether an appropriate one), spend their time for the most part 

 in silence, busied among the dead leaves and underbrush, occasionally resting on a low perch, and rarely 

 flying far when disturbed. They are quiet birds, and, though often easily approached, prefer those places 

 where they arc not likely to be intruded upon. On leaving this State in the spring, they pass on to 

 Northern New England and to Canada, where they spend the summer and rear their young, being in 

 some localities the most common Thrushes. In October, they return to Massachusetts in the course of 

 their journey to their winter homes in the south, and a few linger until November is well advanced. 

 During their sojourn here in autumn, they frequent the ground much less than in spring, and feed largely 

 on various kinds of berries, many of which they find in swamps. 



"These birds are to be associated with October, when the roads, hardened by frost, are neither 

 muddy nor dusty; when the paths through the woods are strewn with the soft fallen leaves, which rustle 

 pleasantly beneath one's feet; when the clear, cold, exhilarating weather is well adapted to exercise; when 

 the maples are in the utmost splendor of their brilliant coloring; and finally when the hills, covered with 

 the oaks of low growth, where once forests stood, glow with the rich crimson, which at last becomes a 

 dull brown, showing winter to be near at hand. 



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