158 USEFUL BIRDS. 
but seldom troubles cultivated varieties. Taken all in all, it 
is a harmless and most useful species. 
Wood Thrush. Song Thrush. Wood Robin. 
Hylocichla mustelina. 
Length. — About eight inches. 
Adult.— Above, mostly cinnamon-brown, reddest on head ; eye ring white; below, 
mainly white, with large, rounded, dark-brown spots on breast and sides. 
Nest.— On shrub sapling or low branch, six to ten feet up; much like that of the 
Robin, but usually composed of more woodsy material; the mud is often 
replaced by leaf mold. 
Eggs.— Usually four; greenish-blue ; resembling those of the Robin, but smaller. 
Season. — May to September. 
The Wood Thrush is, as its name indicates, primarily a 
bird of the woods, preferring the tall timber in some shady 
dell, where pure floods from the never-failing springs of 
the hills have gathered into a water course. 
Here, where the rushing stream dallies on 
its way among moss-grown rocks, where 
the skunk cabbage grows, where rank? 
ferns and lush mosses hide the oozy 
ground, and where great swamp 
maples stand cool and _ tall, 
the Wood Thrush loves to 
dwell. Its apparent na- 
tive modesty and retir- 
ing disposition, its love 
for shade and solitude, 
seem to be prominent 
characteristics of this 
Fig. 4'7.— Wood Thrush, two-thirds natural sylvan recluse. Still, of 
recent years the bird is 
often found about the haunts of men, particularly in places 
where it is protected, and where large and clustering shade 
trees afford it cool retreats. Its carriage as it hops or runs 
upon the ground is somewhat like that of a Robin. Rather 
sedentary in habit, it seems to be confined during the breed- 
ing season to a limited area around its home, where its song 
may be heard more or less at all hours, but mainly during the 
cooler portions of the day, throughout the summer months. 
