ICO HERMIT THRUSH. 



the rich silky blue on the crown, and much of the splendour 

 of the neck ; the tail is also somewhat shorter, and the white 

 with which it is marked less pure* 



HERMIT THRUSH. {Turdus solitarius.) 



PLATE XLIIL— Fig. 2. 



Little Thrush, Catesby, i. 31.— Edwards, 296.— Brown Thrush. Arct. Zool. 337, 

 No. 199.—Peale , s Museum, No. 3542. 



TURDUS SOLITARIUS.— Wilson. t 



Turdus minor, Bonap. Synop. p. 75.— The Hermit Thrush, And. Orn. Blog. 

 i. p. 303, pi. 58, male and female. 



The dark solitary cane and myrtle swamps of the southern 

 States are the favourite native haunts of this silent and recluse 

 species ; and the more deep and gloomy these are, the more 

 certain we are to meet with this bird flitting among them. 

 This is the species mentioned in the first volume of this work, 

 while treating of the wood thrush, as having been figured and 

 described, more than fifty years ago, by Edwards, from a 

 dried specimen sent him by my friend Mr William Bartram, 

 under the supposition that it was the wood thrush {Turdus 



* In addition to their history by Wilson, Audubon mentions, that 

 though regularly migrating in numbers, they are never in such vast 

 extent as the passenger pigeon, from two hundred and fifty to three 

 hundred being considered a large flock. He also mentions them differ- 

 ing in another more important particular — the manner of roosting. 

 They prefer sitting among the long grass of abandoned fields, at the 

 foot of the dry stalks of maize, and only occasionally resort to the dead 

 foliage of trees, or the different species of evergreens. They do not sit 

 near each other, but are dispersed over the field, whereas the passenger 

 pigeon roosts in compact masses on limbs of trees. In every respect 

 they run more into the ground doves, or bronze-winged pigeons, which 

 similarity some parts of the plumage will strengthen. — Ed. 



t Bonaparte has wished to restore Gmelin's old name of minor to this 

 bird, which Wilson had thought in some manner erroneous, on account 

 of solitarius being preoccupied by another species. That, however, 

 will rank in the genus Petrocincla; and Mr Swainson has since de- 

 scribed a small species under the name of minor. — Ed. 



