76 BIRDS OF NEW ENGLAND AND EASTERN NEW YOKK 



Its reddish-brown tail and the trick of raising it slowly, 

 distinguish the Hermit from the other thrushes. (See also 

 under Fox Sparrow, p. 154.) 



Olive-backed Thkush; Swainson's Thrush. Hylo- 



oichla ustulata swainsoni 



7.17 



Ad. $. — Upper parts olive-brown; eye-ring buffy ; cheek, when 



seen in strong light, washed with huff; breast whitish, spotted with 



black. 



Nesl, in bushes or small trees, bulky and compact. Eggs, light 

 greenish-blue, spotted with brown, 



The Olive-backed or Swainson's Thrush breeds on Grey- 

 lock Mountain in Massachusetts, on the higher Catskills, in 

 deep spruce swamps on the southern New Hampshire and 

 Vermont upland, and commonly all through northern New 

 England and in the Adirondacks. In the rest of New Eng- 

 land and New York it is a spring and fall migrant, a bird 

 seen only by those who look for it. During the second half 

 of May it may be found in roadside thickets, open woods, 

 and even in the yards of villages and towns, if there is attrac- 

 tive shrubbery and if the locality is favorable to migration. 



The bird occasionally sings on migration, early in the 

 morning and toward evening ; but on its northern breeding- 

 ground the song becomes a characteristic sound. It is un- 

 mistakably the voice of a thrush, like a Veery's song in- 

 verted, going up instead of down the scale, but throatier, 

 more gurgling, inferior in purity, richness, and suggestive- 

 ness to those of the three other common thrushes. Its call- 

 note is a sharp whit, which can be varied in tone and power ; 

 it also utters on its breeding-ground a note like the syllables 

 chee-urr. In the fall, from the end of September to early 

 October, the migrant birds frequent the dry birch-lined 

 lanes or country roads, or the open glades of woodland ; 

 with them are often associated, both in spring and fall, the 



