Plate LXVIII. 
Fig. 4. SIURUS MOTAC I LLA-Large- billed Wafer Thrush. 
“Common summer resident, but of irregular distribution. Arrives about the middle of April or 
earlier, and departs in August. 
“The Large-billed Water Thrush is one of the birds which is not uniformly distributed, either when 
migrating or breeding. In general, it may be said that as we approach the northern limit of the range 
of a species, the individuals representing it become fewer, and, during the breeding season, are only to 
be found in such localities as are pre-eminently suited to their taste and wants. This appears to be true 
in this State of the present species, the Yellow-throated, Prairie, and Pine-creeping Warblers, White-eyed 
Yireo, Whip-poor-will, and perhaps others. When on their migrations they seem to pass rapidly from 
one breeding locality to another, seldom making a stop at intermediate points. 
“In the immediate vicinity of this city, I know the Large-billed Water Thrush only as a rare 
migrant, appearing sometimes as early as April 13th, and with the Yellow-throated Warblers, the first 
of the family to arrive. They are then found in wet woodlands and along the muddy wooded banks of 
streams, never in open places, as is the frequent habit of the Small-billed Water Thrush, nor are they 
as silent as that species. 
“The Large-billed Water Thrush was first introduced as an Ohio bird in my list of 1861, on the 
authority of Mr. John Kirkpatrick, who informed me that it was found in the vicinity of Cleveland. Dr- 
Ivi Aland and Mr. Read had confounded the two species. Mr. Langdon gives it as a rather common sum- 
mer resident in the vicinity of Cincinnati, and I have seen specimens from Sandusky. My first acquaint- 
ance with the bird in the breeding season was made June 19, 1875, in the ‘glen’ at Yellow Springs. 
Here I found them abundant, and busily engaged in feeding half-grown Cowbirds. I afterwards found 
them in the ravines above Worthington, in this county, where they were equally abundant, and making- 
preparations for nesting. Here they were indiscriminately in trees, on the ground, or wading on the level 
slaty bottoms of the shallow brooks. Frequently they mounted to the upper branches of high trees over- 
hanging the ravines, whence their’ loud and mellow song echoed along the winding banks with surpassing- 
sweetness.” 
The above is quoted from Yol. IV of “Geological Survey of Ohio.” 
LOCALITY : 
Mr. Brewster describes a nest of this species as follows: “The nest taken with the female parent, 
May 6th, contained six eggs, which had been incubated a few days. The locality was the edge of a 
lonely forest pool in the depths of a cypress swamp near White River (Indiana). A large tree had fallen 
into the shallow water, and the earth adhering to the roots, formed a nearly vertical, but somewhat 
irregular wall, about six feet in height and ten or twelve in width. Hear the upper edge of this, in a 
cavity among the finer roots, was placed the nest, which, but for the situation and peculiar character of its 
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