OF NEW ENGLAND. 37 
(A rather rare migrant through Massachusetts.) 
(a). 7-71 inches long. Above, soft, dusky olive (occas- 
ionally with a reddish-brown tinge). Sides of the head buff, 
and breast strongly tinged with the same color. The latter 
and the sides of the throat, thickly spotted with dusky. Hye- 
ring buff. 
(b). The nest is a rather bulky structure, usually composed 
of twigs,, mosses, grasses, leaves, etc., with no mud, and 
sometimes lined with the coal-black hairs of a certain moss. 
It is placed in a spruce, low tree, or perhaps a bush, from three 
to ten feet above the ground. It is often built beside a road 
or wood-path. The first set, of three or four eggs, is usually 
laid in the first, or perhaps more often the second week of June ; 
the second set is laid four or five weeks later. The eggs are 
much like those of the Scarlet Tanager, being about ‘95 x *70 
of an inch, and light blue, olive-tinged, either finely marked 
with indistinct brown, or coarsely spotted (with a few fine 
markings beside), chiefly at the great end, with obscure lilac, 
and two shades of brown. 
(c). Though the Swainson’s Thrushes are by no means very 
common migrants through Eastern Massachusetts, yet a vigi- 
lant and energetic ornithologist can hardly fail to meet with 
them in the spring. Groves of tall hemlocks are among the 
places, where, about the middle of May, I have seen these 
birds, not on the ground, but among the branches of the trees, 
from which they occasionally dart into the air and catch insects 
in the manner of flycatchers. I have also met them in swampy 
roads, or even in orchards, and have observed them on the 
ground, often moving quite rapidly, or pausing in a rather erect 
attitude. Probably, it is partly because of their usual shy- 
ness while migrating, partly because they often frequent the 
higher branches, and partly because two of their ordinary notes 
are very much like those of the Snow-birds (of whom a few: 
linger in May), that they are often considered rarer than they 
are. Before June all the Olive-backed Thrushes pass beyond 
the limits of this State, and of these many spend the summer 
in northern Vermont or New Hampshire, and in Maine, some 
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