712 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 
above them all in wire-worms and thousandlegs, but eats scarcely any 
scavenger beetles. Only 19 percent of its food was fruit, and all but 7 
percent of this was wild. It would apparently well repay generous en- 
couragement.”’ 
We have no more beautiful songster or more lovable bird than this 
in the state. Its song should commend it to the nature lover and its 
food habits to the agriculturist. It is not likely ever to become super- 
abundant and there is reason to believe that it has been steadily decreasing 
in numbers for the last two decades. 
The nest of the Wood Thrush is placed commonly in the triple fork of 
a small sapling, on the horizontal branch of a low tree, or in a tangled 
mass of bushes and vines, usually four to twelve feet from the ground, 
more rarely at a height of fifteen or twenty. It is built of sticks, leaves, 
bark and mud, and almost invariably lined more or less completely with 
fine roots. Most writers state that the nest is held together with mud, 
but in many cases this certainly is not true, the mud being merely an 
inner shell or lining upon which the incomplete lining of roots is laid. 
Many nests contain very few roots and we have frequently found the eggs 
laid directly upon the mud or upon a little mat of roots at the bottom of 
nest, the surrounding mud walls being entirely naked. Mr. James B. 
Purdy of Plymouth has called our attention to the fact that in his vicinity 
the “mud” used is entirely of vegetable origin, being in reality a pulp 
made of partly decomposed forest leaves which are molded into shape 
much as paper pulp is worked. 
The eggs are almost invariably three or four, one about as often as 
the other. They are of the same shade as the Robin’s, greenish-blue, 
unspotted, and not with certainty distinguishable from those of the Robin, 
although they average somewhat smaller. Ridgway gives the average 
as 1.04 by .72 inches. The nest is rarely hidden, and owing to its size 
and lack of concealment is often robbed by Crows, Jays and boys, so that 
the bird is sometimes compelled to build several nests, but there is no 
reason to suppose that more than a single brood is reared in a season. 
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 
Adult male: Upper parts, including wings and tail, clear reddish-brown, reddest on 
the head, most olive on the tail; under parts white, heavily spotted with black, the 
throat and belly alone lacking spots. Sexes alike. 
Length 7.50 to 8.25 inches; wing 4 to 4.50; tail 3 to 3.30. 
320. Veery. Hylocichla fucescens fucescens (Steph.). (756) 
Synonyms: Tawny Thrush, Wilson’s Thrush, Nightingale.—Turdus fucescens, Steph., 
1817, and most subsequent authors until 1880.—Hylocichla fucescens, Ridgw., 1880, 
and most recent authors.—Turdus wilsonii, Bonap., 1824, and some others. 
All the thrushes are commonly recognizable from their general re- 
semblance in form to the common Robin, while their colors are soft olives 
and browns above and whitish below, the throat and breast more or less 
spotted with brown or black. The largest of our thrushes, the Wood 
Thrush, is decidedly smaller than the Robin, and the present species, the 
Veery, is still smaller. The beginner will experience great difficulty in 
separating the smaller thrushes, but the Veery may be characterized as 
the palest of them all, both above and below, with a distinct buffy tint 
