6 WOOD THRUSH. 
verted into large cemeteries. Here I found this Thrush more common than ever before, 
even more abundant than the Robin. Excepting the Catbird the Wood Thrush was 
here the most frequent nesting bird. In a part of the woods comprising about one and 
a half acres, partly shaded by broad-spreading forest trees where the thickets were 
crowded together, I found in a few hours three nests of this Thrush. Two were in the 
immediate neighborhood of an extensive, much tangled thicket, in which there were 
also two Catbird’s and a Blackbilled Cuckoo’s nest. One structure on the east side of 
the thicket was very near a Catbird’s nest. It was placed in a small tree about five 
feet from the ground, and contained three eggs. The structure was very loosely built 
of grass-stems, barkstrips and dead leaves; in the inside of this was placed a-cup of 
black mud lined with delicate rootlets and a few grass-blades. It contained three 
greenish-blue eggs. The second nest on the north side of the same thicket was hardly 
fifty steps from the first. It was placed in a small hawthorn about six feet from the 
ground and contained only two eggs. It differed but little from the first. The third 
nest I discovered on the “Indian Mound,” a little elevation in the woods,—said to have 
been a burial place of the Indians. This nest was situated in a dense black haw! about 
six feet from the ground, and contained four uniformly greenish-blue eggs. It was much 
more carefully constructed than the other two, though composed of the same materials. 
The sitting female was so tame that I almost touched her with my hand before she 
started from the nest. Without a cry of distress she disappeared in the shrubbery and 
noiselessly returned when I had stepped back. Strange to say, the male did not make 
his appearance in the neighborhood of the nest. 
In Wisconsin the Wood Thrush prefers to build in young white pine and hemlock 
copses. Here the structure is usually from four to eight feet from the ground close to 
the trunk on a horizontal branch. 
The song of our Wood Thrush, usually poured forth from a tree-top, is among 
the most exquisite of all bird-melodies. In this respect the bird is not only not inferior 
to the famed European Song Thrush (Turdus musicus), but rivals and perhaps even 
excels it in some respects. Words can give no idea of the song of this nightingale of 
the forest. To be appreciated it must be heard in the free open air of unfolding 
nature. Nobody, perhaps, has felt more keenly the beauty of this song than our poet 
Dr. W. L. Shoemaker.—AIl Wood Thrushes do not sing equally well, some are only 
of medium ability, others sing little more than the three-syllabled flute-like ‘“E-o-lie.” 
Wherever this Thrush abounds, the woods actually re-echo with this glorious note. 
Those inhabiting the deciduous woods are not such fine singers as those occurring in 
woods where foliage trees and conifers intermingle. In the mountain regions of Penn. 
sylvania, Virginia, North and South Carolina, where the gushing mountain streams are 
bordered with tangled thickets of rhododendrons (mountain bays), kalmias (mountain 
laurels), andromedas, sweet scented calycanthus, viburnums, and dogwoods, the birds 
are said to sing more beautifully still. No doubt the surroundings greatly affect the 
singing. The song of the Wood Thrush is characterized by fullness, modulation, purity 
of tone, and variety. The hearer is involuntarily reminded of the tone of a fine string- 
instrument. Though the song of the most of these Thrushes is tinged with the gayful, 
1 Viburnum pruncifolium. 
