246 LOUISIANA WATER THRUSH. 
Missouri River, speeding on to meet the Mississippi. At the foot of this bluff, close to 
the water of the lake, the Worm-eating Warbler twittered its simple notes. Mr. Wid- 
mann remarked that the Chippy-like song in the hilly woods is always that of 
this Warbler. My particular attention, however, was called to a LovisianA WATER 
TuRUuSH, a bird which I had previously observed in Texas, Louisiana, and south-western 
Missouri, but whose nest I had never found. As we were resting in the shade of high 
sycamores, broad elms, and pecan trees, listening to the various songsters about us and 
observing their manners and ways, a Water Thrush came flying across the lake and 
alighted with a worm in its beak on the shore near us. Noticing our presence the bird 
became uneasy, ran up and down on the water’s edge, jerking its tail and uttering a 
few warning notes. Mr. Widmann remarked that the Water Thrush in this locality, . 
and probably elsewhere, builds its nest generally on the side of an embankment and 
that we very likely might find a nest here. The bank, not directly on the water’s edge, 
was about eight feet high, and when I let myself down the bird took wing, uttering a 
few loud plaintive notes. I did not have to search long. Almost before me, near the 
top of the embankment, I noticed in a small niche of the soil, among the mass of small 
roots of an elm, a bunch of leaves. Into these leaves the nest was daintily built of 
grass, fine rootlets, moss, and plant stems. No one, not acquainted with the manner 
of nidification of this bird, would have suspected it in such a spot. It containéd four 
young birds nearly old enough to fly. 
Like the Worm-eating, Hooded, Prothonotary, and Blue Warblers, the Louisiana 
Water Thrush seems to be a common bird near St. Louis and in all suitable localities 
in southern Illinois and Indiana. Prof. Wm. Brewster found the bird quite common in 
Knox County, Ind. In the “Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club” (1878, 
p. 183—135), he gives the following excellent description on the nesting habits of the 
Large-billed Water Thrush: 
“The writer had the good fortune to find two fully identified nests of this species 
in Knox County, Indiana, during the past spring (1878). The first, taken with the 
female parent, May 6, contained six eggs, which had been incubated a few days. The 
locality was the edge of a lonely forest pool in the depths of a cypress swamp near 
White River. A large tree had fallen into the shallow water, and the earth adhering to 
the roots formed a nearly vertical but somewhat irregular wall about six feet in height 
and ten or twelve in breadth. Near the upper edge of this, in a cavity among the finer 
roots, was placed the nest, which, but for the situation and the peculiar character of 
its composition, would have been exceedingly conspicuous. Its presence was first betrayed 
by the female, which darted off as one of our party brushed by within a few feet. She 
alighted on a low branch a few rods distant, uttering her sharp note of alarm, and 
vibrating her tail in the usual characteristic manner, but otherwise evincing no particular 
anxiety or concern. The nest, which is before me, is exceedingly large and bulky, 
measuring externally 3.50 inches in diameter, by 8.00 inches in length, and 3.50 inches 
in depth. Its outer wall, a solid mass of soggy dead leaves plastered tightly together 
by the mud adhering to their surfaces, rises in the form of a rounded parapet, the outer 
edge of which was nicely graduated to conform to the edge of the earthy bank in which 
it was placed. In one corner of this mass, and well back, is the nest proper, a neatly 
