32 DISTEIBDTION OF THE HEBMIT THRUSH 



of their time on the ground, always suggested that it was bare- 

 footed, and tempted me to wonder why it did not sufi'er, ram- 

 bling incessantly over the frozen ground, or even leaving its 

 track in a slight fall of snow. Though I never knew it to en- 

 dure the depth of winter in this locality, yet other observers 

 have found it lingering through the whole season still further 

 north — the Eev. Dr.'TurnbuU has left us such a record in his 

 elegant little volume entitled " The Birds of East Pennsylvania 

 and New Jersey"; and Mr. C. J. Maynard says he has seen the 

 bird in Northern New Hampshire in November, when the snow 

 was on the ground. Those who care to look farther into the 

 details of the subject will find many other records, which show 

 the whereabouts of the bird at various seasons, in my " Birds of 

 the Northwest." Here, I will content myself with the further 

 statement that it is chiefly known as a migrant in the Middle 

 States, not pausing to mate and rear its young south of Massa- 

 chusetts as far as we now know, — though I suspect that it will 

 yet be discovered to nestle in some of the untried recesses of 

 the Alleghanies. In the northerly parts of New England, and 

 thence to the Arctic regions, the Hermit Thrush is at home in 

 summer. Whether it ever reaches Greenland or not is uncer- 

 tain. A Thrush is recorded from that country by the accom- 

 plished Danish ornithologist Professor Eeinhardt, under the 

 name of " Turdus minor Gra." ; but I believe that the actual 

 reference in this case is to the Olive-backed. The same doubt 

 attaches to a part, at least, of the quotations we have of the 

 bird's occurrence in Europe ; others, however, are undisputed, 

 and the fact may be considered established that it occasion- 

 ally deviates so widely from its established routes of migration. 



From the West, we have the testimony of two excellent ob- 

 servers, to show that the Hermit Thrush reaches the Rocky " 

 Mountains. Mr. J. A. Allen and Mr. T. M. Trippe have each 

 found it in Colorado, and ascertained that it breeds in that 

 Territory, in the mountains, up to an altitude of at least 8,000 

 feet. 



How quietly and with what solicitude for privacy the nesting 

 of the Hermit Thrush is accomplished ! Such care is taken to 

 conceal its nest in the recesses of tangled undergrowth that 

 few are the ornithologists who have found it. If Wilson, Nut- 

 tall, or Audubon ever saw a nest, no one of them recognized 

 its owner. The nests and eggs which they describe as those 

 of the Hermit were certainly the Olive-backed Thrush's the 



