WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 1904 



Dear Listener— It is of such unusual oc- 

 currence to see the Herrnit thrush in 

 Massachusetts at tills season, that I 

 thought other readers of the Transcript 

 might be interested to hear of It. On Sun- 

 day morning:, Jan. 24, at about eight-thirty 

 a beautiful Hermit thrush alighted on the 

 vine over our porch, and stayed nearly ten 

 minutes. Was very tame, as there were 

 jr of us close by the window watching, 

 d even when we carefully opened the 

 door and wlilstled a poor imitation of a 

 few of its notes, it only mo\ed its tail 

 slowly up and down, and looked at us with 

 ;erest. Its plumage was in fine condi- 

 tion, and It looked plump and contented. 

 If I were not so well acquainted with Her- 

 mit thrushes, I should have hardly be- 

 lieved my own bird-eye, but Mr. Brewster, 

 a footnote in Mlnot'.s book, says: "It 

 has be«n found several times In midwinter 

 ir Boston." So I am perfectly sure 

 ;re is no mistalce in Its identity. L. C. 

 West Medford. 



Dear Listener— Your West Medford and 

 Boston correspondents, L. C. and H. W. 

 W., who have recorded the presence of 

 the hermit thrush about Boston in winter, 

 -will doubtless be Interested to hear of two 

 further records. A hermit thrush was seen 

 Jan, 1 in the morning at Hall's Pond, 

 Longwood. It was plump and active, hop- 

 ping about In a thicket of brambles, tilting 

 its tail and uttering- Its characteristic 

 "chuck." Another hermit thrush was seen 

 on Jan. 8 at Chestnut Hill. This hlrd wae 

 likewise plump and active, and seemed In 

 a perfectly healthy condition. From so 

 many records, It is evident that the hermit 

 thrush l3 wintering not at all uncommonly 

 with u-j this severe season 

 I F. G. B. and M. C. B. 



^.Erookllne. Feb. 2. - m . , ^a-,^ 



Dear Listener— Your West Medford corre- 

 spondent, "L. C," who saw a liermlt 

 thrush on the vine over the porch of the 

 house in the early forenoon of Jan. 24, will 

 bo Interested to learn that another bird 

 observer saw a hermit thrush on Jan. 21, in 

 Olmsted Park. He was seen as he came 

 on the wing to one of the little ponds, the 

 water of which keeps open during the 

 severest cold— sleek, quick of motion, pick- 

 ing at the water's edge, running on the 

 snow, lifting the tall v/hen stopping or 

 perching on a nearby bough, silent but as 

 animated as a hermit of the summer time 

 in the Northern forests; the bird, pre- 

 sumably the same I had seen also on Dec. 

 19 and 2» In the sam.e vicinity. We cer- 

 tainly have hermit thrushes wintering with 

 us this severe season of 1903-1901. It Is the 

 more remarkable since careful observation 

 of bird life in and about Boston during the 

 last four v/inters has not before placed In 

 my record the hermit thrush. This ice- 

 bound season has been chosen by the 

 species, therefore, to l:urther establish Mr. 



1 William Brewster's statement, "Found sev- 

 eral times In midwinter, near Boston." 

 Other records of 'mine In December were: 

 1 Stonehamv Bear Hill, Dec. 5; Maiden, Pine 

 1 Banks Park, Dec. 12; Longwood, Riverway 

 t Park, Dec. SO. 



I Your readers may also be interested to 

 1. know that there is one other species whose 



presence with us may be even more sur- 

 prising, the mockingbird. I have seen one 

 in the same corner of Jamaica Pa.rk, Jan. 

 G, 7, 12, 13 and 23. It has, therefore, safely 

 passed through nights of 13° to 15° below 

 zero. Abundance of food Is present in the 

 berries remaining upon the shrubs. It is 

 a;^ked, is not this an escaped cage bird? It 

 may be answered, would such a one sur- 

 vive the extreme cold of this month? Other 

 mockingbird records, 1902 and 1903. have 

 been: Melrose, Oct. 16, 1902; Duxbury, Dec. 

 20, 1902, and June 18. 1903, and, upon reli- 

 able authority, continuou.sly resident from 

 Oct. 5 to June IS (later knowledge of It is 

 not mine) on a rather bleak point of land 

 jutting out into the ma.rshes; the Arbor- 

 etum, 1903, Feb. 26 and 27, March 2 and % 

 Api-il 21, singing, and seen by others re- 

 peatedly upon intervening and later dates; 

 Nahant, Dec. 2S, 1903. It seems hardly 

 possible that these five mockingbirds were 

 all escap'ed birds. On the other hand. It 

 seems quite probable that most of them 

 were never caged. Except in the case of 

 the Duxbury bird, to which a friend con- 

 ducted me, I .came upon the birds unex- 

 pecledly In my walks. It would seem a 

 rare experience if, under these circum- 

 stances, a single observer has fallen in 

 with escaped birds only. The pleasant in- 

 ference, which fairly may be drawn is 

 that the mockingbird is bedoming more 

 present with us than ten years ago. When 

 Mr. Brewster appended this one of his 

 many valuable footnotes to Minofs "Land 

 Birds," one or two specimens have been 

 taken in Massachusetts in winter 



The South and the North are met to- 

 gether In Jamaica Park this winter, for in 

 close proximJly to the mockingbird mav be 

 seen a flock of pine grosbeaks feeding con- 

 tentedly on the berries and expressing the 

 pleasure of companionship in soft, sweet 

 tones, as they move through the shrubbery. 

 Not far distant on Jan. 23 was seen another 

 bird of the North, a snow bunting, upon the 

 snowy roadv/ay of the park, where he was 

 Intently occupied In picking up his noonday 

 meal, merely avoiding the sleighs as they 

 passed, and heeding them scarcely more 

 than a house sparrow would. The dense 

 fog of the morning no doubt gave him 

 greater courage, and the complete envelop- 

 ment of the landscape in snow and Ice as 

 well as fog, must have been as congenial to 

 him as would be Nahant or Ipswich. It 

 was my first record of a snowflake in the 

 park, and it is to be credited to Brookiine. 

 It may be mentioned that a flock of robins 

 numbering fifteen or more is frequenting 

 the Arboretum, and that on Jan. 11 and 12 

 a Wilson's snipe made a brief visit there, 

 finding the shallow run of water over un- 

 frozen ground at the north gate adapted to 

 the use of his long bill In probing for neces- 

 sary food. H. -w. W. 

 Boston, Jan. 28. /ff /v^-lySf?) 

 Last Sunday morning, it will be remei^ 

 bered, was quite warm and pleasant— one of 

 the few days of the month of which as 

 much can be said— and Mr. G. A. Spooner 

 and a friend saw In Franklin Park a flock 

 of as many as twenty-flve robins, a dozen 

 pine grosbeaks, all females, some downy 

 woodpeckers, male and female, chickadees, . 

 .iuncos and bluejays. The woods Seem to 

 be full of them, and a bright day will bring 

 some of them out from their refuges. i 

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