BICKNELL’S THRUSH. 15 
whereas the Hermit begins with its lowest notes and proceeds on an ascending scale, 
Alice’s Thrush begins with its highest and concludes with its lowest note. So, at 
least, Brewer tells us. The song is softer, more distant, not so loud and ringing as 
that of the Olive-back. In Chicago I kept several in a cage, but not one delighted me 
with its full song. 
I have never seen more than two of these birds together. They are shy and 
avoid the immediate vicinity of man. Their food consists mostly of insects, which are 
sought for on the ground among dead leaves. In autumn they also feed on the berries 
of the black-haw, holly, magnolia, Mexican mulberry!, and with preference on poke- 
berries ?. 
NAMES: Gray-CHEEKED TurusH, ALIce’s THRUSH.—Germ. Grauwangendrossel, Alice-Drossel. 
SCIENTIFIC NAMES: TURDUS ALICIAE Barrp (1858), T. swainsonii aliciae Coues (1872). 
DESCRIPTION: Above grayish-olive, the cheeks uniformly grayish; chin, throat, and belly creamy white, 
marked with large sagittate dark spots. Sexes alike.—Length 7 to 8 inches.—Nest in low bushes, 
sometimes on the ground. Eggs greenish blue, spotted with light brown. 
BY 
BICKNELL’S GRAY-~CHEEKED THRUSB. 
Turdus aliciae bicknelli Rew. 
More interesting than the real species is the local race discovered by Mr. Eugene 
Bicknell on June 15, 1881, in the Catskill Mountains and subsequently named after its 
discoverer by Prof. R. Ridgway of the Smithsonian Institution. Mr. Bicknell gives such 
a beautiful description of the region and its bird-life’that I will cite it in full for the 
benefit of my readers. 
“That there remained unrecognized at this late day a bird regularly inhabiting 
one of the most populous portions of our country; or, indeed, that a species of eminently 
boreal habitat during its breeding season, and not known to occur at all at such time 
within the limits of the United States, should have a representative race regularly 
breeding in our midst, are facts for which we were little prepared.... On June 15, 1881, 
nearing the summit* of Slide Mountain in Ulster County (N. Y.), the forests of a 
more northern latitude were forcibly suggested. A shower had fallen during the ascent, 
and the sun was still obscured, while’a sharp wind from the northwest piercing the 
wet woods and sighing among the balsams, blasted and weather-beaten, heightened an 
impression of remoteness and desolation. The evergreens, constituting the principal 
arboreal growth, extended off on all sides, clothing the rocky and moss-grown slopes, 
and presenting the striking contrast of a young and fragrant second growth clustering 
about the branchless and spiny trunks of their sires tottering in decay; or, with tangled 
and matted branches outlined here and there, as we approached the summit, against a 
gray and cheerless sky. Owing to the comparatively short life of these trees, that high 
portion of the mountain where their tribe had pitched was brought into grim contrast 
1 Callicarpa americana. 2 Phytolacca decandra. 
* The highest peak of the Catskills, — 4205 feet altitude. 
