96 



HERMIT THRUSH 



tal branch immediately over the path. The female was sitting, 

 and left it with great reluctance, so that I had nearly laid my hand 

 on her before she flew. The nest was fixed on the upper part of 

 the body of the branch, and constructed with great neatness; but 

 without mud or plaister, contrary to the custom of the Wood 

 Thrush. The outside was composed of a considerable quantity of 

 coarse rooty grass, intermixed with horse hair, and lined with a 

 fine green colored, thread-like grass, perfectly dry, laid circularly 

 with particular neatness. The eggs were four, of a pale greenish 

 blue, marked with specks and blotches of olive, particularly at the 

 great end. I also observed this bird on the banks of the Cumber- 

 land river in April. Its food consists chiefly of berries, of which 

 these low swamps furnish a perpetual abundance, such as those of 

 the holly, myrtle, gall bush, (a species of vaccinium,) yapon shrub, 

 and many others. 



A superficial observer would instantly pronounce this to be 

 only a variety of the Wood Thrush; but taking into consideration 

 its difference of size, color, manners, want of song, secluded habits, 

 differently formed nest, and spotted eggs, all unlike those of the 

 former, with which it never associates, it is impossible not to con- 

 clude it to be a distinct and separate species, however near it may 

 approach to that of the former. Its food, and the country it in- 

 habits for half the year being the same, neither could have pro- 

 duced those differences; and we must believe it to be now, what it 

 ever has and ever will be, a distinct connecting link in the great 

 chain of this part of animated nature; all the sublime reasoning 

 of certain theoretical closet philosophers to the contrary notwith- 

 standing. 



Length of the Hermit Thrush seven inches, extent ten inches 

 and a half; upper parts plain deep olive brown, lower dull white; 

 upper part of the breast and throat dull cream color, deepest where 

 the plumage falls over the shoulders of the wing, and marked with 

 large dark brown pointed spots ; ear feathers and line over the eye 



