whole is lined with fine roots and a few fine dry grasses. : Occasionally, instead of the solid frame оў 
impacted leaves, we find one of solidified mud. EN 
“Тһе eggs of the Wood-Thrush, usually four in number, sometimes five, are of a uniform deep- 
blue tint, with but a single admixture of yellow, which imparts a greenish tinge. Their average 
measurements are 1:00 by “75 inch.” P y 
Mr. Bicknell writes of this species in his paper on Ше“ Singing of Birds” (Auk, i. p. 128): 
« This most admirable song-bird is in voice from its arrival, in late April or early May, until about 
the middle of August. But towards the end of July singing becomes less universal with members of 
this species, and soon after has come to be inconstant and confined to the earlier and later hours of 
the day. Songs are usually to be heard through the first week of August, and sometimes for a week 
later (August 6-15), when singing ceases somewhat abruptly, seven or eight weeks before the final 
departure of the species. | 
« After the cessation of singing these Thrushes become shy and inactive, affecting the most 
retired parts of woods, and only the careful observer will discover that they have not disappeared, 
Even their call-notes have almost been discontinued, and when heard are so low in tone and so brief 
as almost to seem as if accidentally uttered. Before their departure, however, though they do not 
again sing, voice is partially regained ; and in October, even so late as the middle, or rarely last of 
the month, their call-notes may sometimes be heard uttered with the same vehemence as in the 
spring. 
“The suspension of song 
accounted for, according to the probabilities ea 
to song operating during that time. In late August adults are covered with growing feathers and 
without fat. In mid-September some, at least, show а nearly perfected plumage, with areas of fat 
beginning to accumulate ; and individuals may be found almost a month later with the renewal of 
plumage still incomplete ; such, perhaps, are birds of the year. It would appear from these facts 
that the impulse to song is first interrupted by the moult, and further suppressed by the supervening 
adipose condition." 
Тһе following description is copied from Seebohm's fifth volume of the * Catalogue of Birds’ :— 
Adult male in spring plumage. General colour of the upper parts russet-brown, shading into 
orange-chestnut on the head and into olive on the rump and upper tail-coverts ; lores grey; ear- 
coverts brown, with pale centres; no trace of eye-stripe ; wings and wing-coverts brown, the outside 
webs of the feathers russet-brown ; tail olive-brown, the tips of the feathers narrowly margined with 
white. Underparts white, with a slight shade of buff on the lower throat, each feather (except on 
the chin, centre of upper throat, centre of belly, and under tail-coverts) having a conspicuous very 
dark-brown fan-shaped terminal spot, paler and obscurely defined on the lower flanks; axillaries 
white, with brown centres; under wing-coverts white with brown bases; inner margin of quills pale 
brown. Bill reddish brown, paler at the base of the lower mandible. Wings with the third and 
fourth primaries nearly equal and longest; second primary sometimes shorter, sometimes longer 
than the fifth ; bastard-primary 0:9 to 0:45 inch. Legs, feet, and claws pale brown. Total length 
7-5 inches, culmen 0:8 to 0:7, wing 4-45 to 8:85, tail 9:9 to 2:5, tarsus 1:28 to 1:12. 
Тһе female does not appear to differ from the male, nor are the colours much brighter 
immediately after the autumn moult. Birds of the year have traces of pale tips to the greater 
wing-coverts. Young in first plumage are described as having pale yellowish, shaft-lines to the 
small feathers of the upper parts and pale ochraceous tips to the wing-coverts. | 
'The figures in the Plate are drawn from a Mexican specimen in the Seebohm Collection. " 
[R. В. SJ- 
