VEERY. 11 
in many places. The former is by no means a rare bird in the woods of Wisconsin and 
is more common than the latter species, especially in extensive damp stretches of bushy 
woodland. I have most frequently observed it during migration in northern Illinois. 
It arrives from the South during the first week of May in small companies, tarries a few 
days and then passes northward. Only a few straggling pairs remain to breed. From 
the middle to the end of September they may be met with again on their way south. 
Though the Veery is in its breeding range a shy bird, it will enter large gardens even 
in towns and cities during migration. In a neighboring garden near my home at 
Harlem (Illinois) which contained many small and medium sized spruces and ornamental 
shrubs, I regularly found among the bird-visitors of the place a small number of Wilson’s 
Thrushes. During the day they busily searched the ground under the bushes for insects, 
in the evening they withdrew to the pine and spruce trees where they were well pro- 
teéted from the real cold north and west winds not unusual even in May. They love 
most to congregate on the forest-covered banks of creeks and rivers.— They appear near 
Houston (Texas) early in October. The berry-like, very aromatic fruit of the magnolias, 
and later the scarlet berries of the hollies and those of many other plants, form a por- 
tion of their diet. Some, no doubt, pass the winter on those sheltered banks of the 
Buffalo Bayou which are bordered by evergreen shrubs and tangled thickets of smilax, 
wild grape, &c., but the majority move further southward to the tropics. Many pass 
the winter in the dense hammock woods of Florida, but more go to Cuba, Guatemala, 
even to South America. According to A. von Pelzeln, Natterer met with them in 
December at San Vincente in the interior of Brazil. In Europe the Veery is said to have 
‘been killed as a straggler. 
The breeding range is larger than that of the Wood Thrush, for it extends from 
the Atlantic westward across the Mississippi far into the Rocky Mountains. This bird 
has been observed especially in Colorado and Utah at an altitude of 8,000 feet. 
Mr. Henshaw found nests at almost this elevation; it is, therefore, also a true mountain 
inhabitant, though it usually prefers the valleys of the mountain streams. Prof. R. 
Ridgway regards it as one of the most charatteristic birds of the valleys of the Provo, 
Bear and Weber Rivers in Utah. In some parts of Wisconsin it nests quite frequently, 
but in northern Illinois it seems to be a more rare summer sojourner. Excepting the 
Robin, the Veery is the commonest of the Thrushes in southern New England during the 
breeding season, where with the Wood Thrush it is characteristic of the Alleghanian 
fauna. In mfich less numbers it also extends sparingly into the Canadian region, where 
the Hermit and Olive-back are so abundant and prominent.* It is also common in the 
Alleghanies and breeds as far south at least as North and probably South Carolina. 
Mr. W. Brewster, one of our leading ornithologists, has written a number of beautiful 
bird-sketches, full of poetry. Lately he published a very interesting and accurate account 
of the birds of the mountain region of North Carolina.t He found the bird abundant 
over the elevated plateau of Highlands, and scarcely less numerous on the Black 
Mountain, ranging in both localities from about 3,500 to 5,000 feet. Like the Wood 
Thrush this species haunted, by preference, rhododendron thickets along streams, and in 
* See Stearns and Coues’ ‘‘New England Bird Life’ Vol. I, p. 60, 61. 
{ W. Brewster, Birds of western North Carolina. ‘Auk’ III, 1886, p. 178, 
