352 BIRDS OF ALABAMA 



General habits. — The wood thrush usually selects low wet 

 woods or shady ravines for its home, but is sometimes found 

 in dry upland groves or even in the shrubbery of village gar- 

 dens. It is not particularly shy and when afforded protection 

 will often regularly visit the dooryard and lawn. Its actions 

 on the ground remind one strongly of its near relative the 

 robin. Its alarm note is a loud, pip-pip and its song is one of 

 the most beautiful of any of our woodland songsters — a loud, 

 rich, flute-like melody, delivered leisurely and with apparent 

 musical feeling. The nest, composed of leaves, rootlets, fine 

 twigs, moss, weed stalks, and shreds of paper and bark, with 

 an inner wall of mud and a lining of rootlets, is generally 

 placed in the upright forks of a sapling or on a horizontal limb 

 of a tree, 6 to 10 feet above the ground. 



Food habits. — The food of the wood thrush consists largely 

 of insects, principally beetles, caterpillars, and ants, with a 

 smaller proportion of bugs, flies, and grasshoppers. Spiders 

 and myriapods are eaten in considerable quantities, with a few 

 snails and earthworms. Vegetable matter constituted about 

 40 per cent of the food in the stomachs examined, of which 

 wild fruits formed the greater part. The varieties most fre- 

 quently eaten are mulberries, blackberries, blueberries, choke 

 cherries, frost grapes, elderberries, spiceberries, and dogwood 

 berries. Cultivated fruit forms less than 4 per cent of the 

 total food.* 



VEERY: Hylocichla fuscescens /Mscescews. (Stephens). 



State records. — The veery, known also as the Wilson thrush, 

 occurs commonly as a migrant in autumn and less frequently 

 in spring. Avery observed it in some numbers at Greensboro 

 from September 9 to 25, 1890, feeding mainly on the berries 

 of the black gum. He took specimens there on August 26 

 and September 4, 1891. McCormack records it as a rather 

 common fall migrant at Leighton from September 15 to Octo- 

 ber 1 ; he saw it also on May 7, 1892. I took two specimens 

 at Barachias, April 24, 1912, and noted a few at Muscle Shoals, 

 April 23 to 25, 1914 ; and on Sipsey Fork, near Mellville, May 

 3 and 4, 1914. Saunders records it as occurring in spring at 



•Beal, F. E. L., Bull. 280, U. S. Dcpt. Agr., pp. 5-8, ISIB. 



