12 Brewster on BicknelVs Thrush in New England. 



BICKNELL'S THRUSH {TURD US ALICn^ BICK- 

 NELLI) IN NEW ENGLAND. 



BY WILLIAM BREWSTER. 



Upon reading Mr. Bicknell's article in the July number of this 

 Bulletin (pp. 152-159) it occurred to me that his new Thrush 

 must breed on our New England mountains as well as among 

 the Catskills. This conviction was strengthened, shortly after- 

 wards, by a letter shown me by Mr. Purdie, in which the writer, 

 Mr. Bradford Torrey of Boston, asked if T?irdi.is alida- was 

 known to summer among the White Mountains, he having heard 

 a Thrush there which he felt sure was neither the Wilson's, 

 the Olive-backed, nor the Hermit. Acting upon the double hint 

 I took an early opportunity to look for the interesting bird, with 

 the following result. 



On the afternoon of July 19, 1882, I started up the Mt. Wash- 

 ington carriage-road from the Glen House, in company with Mr. 

 Walter Deane and Mr. James J. Greenough of Cambridge. At 

 first our choice of a time proved unfortunate, for a succession of 

 heavy showers prevented us from exploring the dripping thickets 

 by the way, and forced us to push on as rapidly as possible, so 

 that we reached the summit, shortly after dark, without having 

 shot a bird of any kind. Thrushes were heard at various points, 

 however, and the peculiar notes of a few met with near the Half- 

 way House led us to hope that our quest would not prove in vain. 



The following was one of those i-are mornings that moun- 

 tain climbers long for but seldom get. The sky was cloudless, 

 and as the sun rose above the horizon its rays gilded the snowy 

 banks of fog that marked the courses of distant rivers, and, touch- 

 ing the eastern sides of the surrounding mountains, bathed every 

 rugged slope and beetling precipice in a flood of light, the brighter 

 from its contrast with the gloom that still enveloped their western 

 sides and shrouded the mysterious depths of dark ravines far 

 below. The keen, almost frosty morning air rustled among the 

 scant vegetation, and an occasional stronger puff heralded the 

 coming blasts which, with other retainers of Winter's train, are 



1SS3.] Brewster on BickuelVs Thrush in Netv England. 1 3 



never quite banished from these elevated regions, even during 

 mid-summer. But time was precious, and barely pausing to 

 admire the grandeur of the scenery that surrounded us we began 

 the descent, my companion^ botanizing, while I watched closely 

 for birds. 



On the very summit — or at least less than a hundred feet below 

 it — Snowbirds {Junco hiemalis) were twittering among the 

 rocks, but no other species were obsei-ved until near the end of 

 the third mile, when the clear notes of a White-throated Sparrow 

 rose from a thicket of dwarf birches {Behtla glandulosa) and 

 blueberry bushes ( Vacchiium ccespitosum) by the roadside. A 

 few hundred yards further down we heard a Nashville Warbler 

 singing in a sheltered hollow among some black spruces {Abies 

 nigra) , the tallest of which were barely four feet high. His pres- 

 ence in such a spot was a forcible illustration of the law that 

 Nature fills all her waste places, for surely he might have found 

 a more congenial home among his kindred in the forests below. 



Down to this point we had seen no trace of Thrushes of any 

 kind, and indeed the evergreens were nowhere numerous or high 

 enough to aflbrd them suitable shelter. But about a third of a 

 mile above the Half-way House, or nearly four miles, by the 

 carriage-road, from the summit, and at an elevation of (approx- 

 imately) 4000 feet, we came to a tract of firs {Abies balsamifera) 

 and spruces {A. tiigra') that seemed to promise better results. 

 This thicket covered three or four acres of a comparatively level 

 portion of the mountain, and extended down the face of an al- 

 most sheer precipice to the bed of West Branch in the "Gulf of 

 Mexico" below. Over the level area the trees attained a height 

 of about ten feet. They averaged perhaps four inches in diam- 

 eter at their bases and their tops were matted and spreading. The 

 ground beneath was moderately open, entirely free from under- 

 growth, and deeply carpeted with a yellowish-olive moss over 

 which were thickly sprinkled the clover-like leaves of the wood 

 sorrel {Oxalis acetosella) and, more sparingly, graceful star 

 flowers {Trientalis americana) and beautiful Clintonias ( C/z«- 

 tonia borealis), the latter still bearing their greenish-yellow 

 blossoms. In the immediate vicinity, but not actually under the 

 shade of the trees, we found Pyrus americana, Betula papyra- 

 cea (four or five feet high) , AmelancJiicr canadensis oligocarpa 

 (three or four feet in height), Ledtim latifolium, Cornus cana- 



