For the most part the bird betrays interest in your movements by a subdued yewi, a note of complaint and admonition, variously likened to a grunt, a bleat, or a nasal interjection. Not infrequently this becomes a clearly whistled wheé-ew; and this, in turn, is varied and strengthened to ve-er-u, or Veery, whence the common name of the typical form, H. fuscescens, in the East. The song proper consists of six or seven of these ve-er-ys, rolled out with a rich and inimitable brogue. The notes vibrate and resound, and fill the air so full of music that one is led to suspect the multiple character of each. The bird is really striking chords, and the sounding strings still vibrate when the next is struck. There is, moreover, in the whole performance, a musical crescendo coupled with a successive lowering of pitch, which is fairly ravishing in its impression of mystery and power.
Taken near Spokane. Photo by F. S. Merrill.
NEST AND EGGS OF THE WILLOW THRUSH.
The distribution of this species is as yet imperfectly made out. Having made its acquaintance at Spokane and along the valley of the Pend d’Oreille, we were able to recognize it later at Chelan and Stehekin, the latter unquestionably the westernmost record of its occurrence in the United States. Whether it may also extend further south along the east front of the Cascades, remains to be seen.
A nest before me was taken by Mr. Fred S. Merrill, in Spokane. It was placed in the crotch of an alder at a height of two feet, and contained, on the ninth day of June, four slightly incubated eggs. The nest is a rather loosely constructed affair of bark-strips, dead leaves, coarse grasses, shavings, leaf-stems, etc., and has a careless lining of dessicated leaves and broken grasses. The matrix of mud, or leaf-mold, which gives strength and consistency to the nests of certain other thrushes, is conspicuously lacking in this one. The brooding hollow is only three inches from brim to brim, by one and three-quarters in depth. The eggs are in every way miniature Robins’, being without spots, and representing only three-fifths or two-thirds the bulk of those of the larger bird.
No. 93.
RUSSET-BACKED THRUSH.
A. O. U. No. 758. Hylocichla ustulata (Nutt.).
Synonym.—“Wood Thrush” (name properly restricted to H. mustelina of the East).
Description.—Adults: Above olive-brown, substantially uniform; a conspicuous orbital ring of pale buff; sides of head buffy mingled or streaked with olive-brown; chin, throat and chest buff (or lightening to buffy white toward chin); sides of throat and entire chest with triangular marks of deep olive-brown, smaller and narrower on throat, larger and broader (sector-shaped) posteriorly; breast, especially on sides, transversely spotted with light brown; sides and flanks heavily marked with brownish; remaining underparts white. Bill blackish, paling basally on mandible; feet and legs brown; iris brown. Winter specimens are brighter, more deeply tinged with buff before and with under tail-coverts buffy. Young birds are more or less marked and streaked with buffy and tawny above and the markings of underparts are mostly transverse. Length 6.50-7.50 (165.1-190.5); wing 3.83 (97); tail 2.87 (73); bill .54 (13.7); tarsus 1.10 (28).
Recognition Marks.—Sparrow size; uniform olive-brown above; heavy spotting and buffy wash on chest; sides of head and eye-ring buffy; brown above as compared with H. u. swainsonii.
Nesting.—Nest: of bark-strips, moss and grasses, with a heavy inner mat or mould of dead leaves, lined with rootlets and fine grasses; placed usually at moderate heights in bushes or saplings of thickets, sometimes 30-60 feet high in trees. Eggs: 3-5, usually 4, greenish blue or dull grayish blue dotted and spotted, rather sparingly, with various shades of brown. Av. size, .93 × .67 (23.6 × 17). Season: June, July; one or two broods.
General Range.—Pacific coast district from southern California to Alaska (Juneau), breeding thruout its range; south in winter thru Mexico to Central and northern South America.
Range in Washington.—Common summer resident and migrant west of the Cascade Mountains; probably overflows thru mountain passes to at least the eastern slopes of the Cascades.
Authorities.—Turdus ustulatus Nuttall, Man. Orn. U. S. and Canada, Land Birds, ed. 2, 1840, pp. VI. 830 (Columbia River). C&S. L¹. Rh. D¹. Kb. Ra. D². Ss². Kk. B. E.
Specimens.—U. of W. P¹(?). Prov. B. BN. E.
Artists of the later schools agree that shadows are not often black, as they have been conventionally represented for centuries. Their deepest color note is always that of the ground, or screen, which bears them. The Thrush, therefore, is the truest embodiment of woodland shade, for the shifting russets of its upperparts melt and blend with the tints of fallen leaves, dun roots, and the shadows of tree-boles cast on the brown ashes of fallen comrades. Not content, either, with such protective guarantee, this gentle spirit clings to cover, and reveals itself only as a flitting shade and a haunting voice. Now and then a brown gleam does cross some open space in the forest, but the action is hasty and the necessity much regretted.
RUSSET-BACKED THRUSH.