It is, however, at the sacred hour of sunset that the soul of the heavenly singer takes wing for its ethereal abode. The sun is just sinking; the faithful spouse has settled herself to her gentle task for the night; and the bird-man has lain down in the shadow of the fence to gaze at the sky. The bird gives himself to the buoyant influences of the trembling air and mounts aloft by easy gradations. As he rises he swings round in a wide, loose circle, singing softly the while. At the end of every little height he pauses and hovers and sends down the full voiced song. Up and up he goes, the song becoming tenderer, sweeter, more refined and subtly suggestive of all a bird may seek in the lofty blue. As he fades from the unaided sight I train my glasses on him and still witness the heavenward spirals. I lower the glasses. Ah! I have lost him now! Still there float down to us, the enraptured wife and me, those most ethereal strains, sublimated past all taint of earth, beatific, elysian. Ah! surely, we have lost him! He has gone to join the angels. “Chirriquita, on the nest, we have lost him.” “Never fear,” she answers; “Hark!” Stronger grows the dainty music once again. Stronger! Stronger! Dropping out of the boundless darkening blue, still by easy flights, a song for every step of Jacob’s ladder, our messenger is coming down. But the ladder does not rest on earth. When about two hundred feet high the singer suddenly folds his wings and drops like a plummet to the ground. Within the last dozen feet he checks himself and lights gracefully near his nest. The bird-man steals softly away to dream of love and God, and to waken on the morrow of earth, refreshed.

The Columbian Horned Lark enjoys a wide distribution thruout eastern Washington during the nesting season, the only requirement of the bird being open country. The convenience of water is no object, and the bird favors the undifferentiated wastes of sage, rather than the cultivated fields. Elevated situations are especially attractive, and thousands of these Horned Larks nest along barren, wind-swept ridges and on the smaller mountains where no other species can be found.

No. 89.
PACIFIC HORNED LARK.

A. O. U. No. 474 g. Otocoris alpestris strigata Henshaw.

Synonym.—Streaked Horned Lark.

Description.—Similar to O. alpestris but darker and much smaller, above streaked broadly with black and tinged with buffy; nape, rump and bend of wing more rufescent; underparts usually more or less suffused with yellowish. Adult female more strongly and handsomely marked than that of any other form. Length of adult male (skins) 5.98 (52); wing 3.85 (98); tail 2.59 (65.8); bill .44 (11.3); tarsus .82 (20.8).

Recognition Marks.—As in preceding; smaller, darker and more yellow than other local forms.

Nesting.—Nest and eggs as in preceding. Season: second week in May, second week in June; two broods.

General Range.—Breeding in Pacific Coast district of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia; “migrating to eastern Oregon and Washington, and northern California (Red Bluff; San Francisco)” (Ridgway).

Range in Washington.—Found breeding only on prairies west of Cascades, therefore chiefly confined to Pierce, Thurston and Chehalis Counties; said to winter on East-side.

Migrations.—Spring: last week in February; Tacoma, February 25, 1905, February 10, 1908.

Authorities.—Eremophila cornuta Boie, Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., IX. 1858, 404, 405. (T). C&S. L¹. Ra. B.

Specimens.—(U. of W.) Prov. B.

The prairies of Pierce, Thurston, and Chehalis Counties, so often referred to in these pages, are of comparatively recent formation—mere gravel beds leveled off by the action of a retreating sea—and so thoroly washed thru portions of their area as to be capable of supporting little else than a carpet of moss. The wanton recklessness of the Pacific Horned Larks, which inhabit these open stretches, is really but one degree removed from the modesty of their more fortunate kinfolk across the Cascades. It is modesty without opportunity; and that easily becomes shamelessness. For here the ground is of an uncompromising green, and the “cover,” afforded by slight depressions in the moss, is usually unworthy of the name.

The perfection of green barrenness was attained in the golf-links of South Tacoma, before they were surrendered to the demands of the growing city. Yet this was the very place where the Horned Larks appeared to the best advantage. Returning, as they did, about the 25th of February, in good seasons, they disported themselves like mad Pixies for a month or so, engaging in amorous pursuit and frequent song-flight; until in some way, late in April, domestic order began to emerge from the chaos of rival claims, and little homes dotted the prairie, where belted squires and red-jacketed ladies pursued the twinkling gutta-percha. The conflict of interests, avian and human, was sometimes disastrous to the birds. Mr. Bowles records three instances in which Larks were killed by flying golf balls; and another gentleman, himself a devotee of the game, tells me he once saw a bird struck dead in mid-air.

By the spring of 1906 matters had gone from bad to worse. The golf-links became a sort of common, despairingly resorted to by a few enthusiasts and a motley laity. The northwest portion of the section was staked out into lots, and the whole area was criss-crossed by roads and paths, whereby workmen, school-boys and delivery wagons hastened to and fro. Then it became the special pasture of a band of fifty cows, the lean kine of Pharaoh’s dream multiplied by seven; and to the terrors of two hundred heedless hoofs was later added a flock of sheep, being fattened for sacrifice at a neighboring slaughter-house. This common was also a favorite romping ground for children, while dogs simply went crazy upon it. I saw one rabid beast in a delirium of unfettered bliss do off about six miles in twice as many minutes, with a Horned Lark, flying low, as the invariable object of his chase. When to such conditions as these was added the scantiness of cover, one marveled indeed that the daffy Horned Lark still persisted upon his ancient heritage.

Yet on the 11th of April (the earliest record by far), in the barest of it, we marked a deep rounded cavity which Mr. Bowles declared belonged to the Streaked Horned Lark. Returning on the 27th, we found that the hole in the ground had become a bump instead. The bird, grown callous amid the impending evils, or else frankly intending to warn off trespassers, had filled the cavity full to overflowing, and had erected upon its site a monumental pile visible at a hundred yards. So zealous had the bird’s efforts been that the crest of the nest stuck up two and a half inches above the close-cropped landscape, and the bottom of the nest was above the ground. This creation was quite ten inches across, while it included upon its skirts bits of sod, cow-chips and pebbles,—a motley array, possibly designed to distract attention from the dun-colored eggs which the nest contained. The most lavish display of this sort of brumagem marked a runway of approach, offset by a corresponding depression upon the other side. The nest was composed chiefly of dried grasses and weed-stalks with soft dead leaves, and was lined, not very carefully, with grass, dried leaves, and a single white chicken-feather.[31]

Once the attention of the oölogist was directed to this structure, it rose from the plain like a pyramid of Cheops before his strained anxieties. It was torture to have to leave it for half an hour. How could that school-boy pass at twenty yards and not see it! Then, when I returned to reconnoiter, the dear cattle were just being turned loose for the morning, and they, forsooth, must straggle past it. At the end of another hour, unable longer to endure the suspense, I returned to perform the last offices. The band of sheep was out then, and they were drifting so perilously close, that I ran the last hundred yards to head them off, and none too soon. Yet that precious monument of simplicity held three eggs, unharmed until the advent of the man, who wrought the ruin surely, in the name of—Science(?). Consistency, thou art a jewel found in no egg-collector’s cabinet!

The nest of the Pacific Horned Lark is not often concealed, but usually it does not more than fill the hollow of some cavity, natural or artificial,—a wheel-rut, a footprint of horse or cow, a cavity left by an upturned stone, or, as in one instance, the bottom of an unused golf-hole. The only attempt at concealment noted was where the nest had been placed under the fold of a large strip of tar paper, most of which had become tightly plastered to the ground.

In spite of the comparatively mild weather prevailing in April, eggs are not often laid before the second week in May, and a second set is deposited about the second week in June. The number of eggs in a set varies from two to four, three being most commonly found. In color the ground is grayish white, while dots of greenish gray or reddish gray are now gathered in a heavy wreath about the larger end, and now regularly distributed over the entire surface—sometimes so heavily as to obscure the ground. The eggs are often very perceptibly glossed and there is frequently a haunting greenish or yellowish tinge which diffuses itself over the whole—an atmosphere, as the artist would say. Variation in size runs from ovate to elongate oval, and measurements range from .93 × .60 to .81 × .58.

Horned Larks owe their preservation chiefly to the wariness of the female, for she flushes at long distances. Either she will slip off quietly and sneak at thirty yards, or else flush straight at a hundred. When the nest is discovered she is quite as likely to ignore the intruder, and seldom ventures near enough to betray ownership. On the other hand, given patience and a pair of strong binoculars, “tracking” is not a difficult accomplishment.

Motacillidæ—The Wagtails and Pipits

No. 90.
AMERICAN PIPIT.

A. O. U. No. 697. Anthus rubescens (Tunstall).

Synonyms.—American Titlark. Brown Lark. Louisiana Pipit.

Description.—Adult in spring: Above soft and dark grayish brown with an olive shade; feathers of crown and back with darker centers; wings and tail dusky with paler edging, the pale tips of coverts forming two indistinct bars; outer pair of tail-feathers extensively white; next pair white-tipped; superciliary line, eye-ring and underparts light grayish brown or buffy, the latter streaked with dusky except on middle of throat and lower belly,—heavily on sides of throat and across breast, narrowly on lower breast and sides. Winter plumage: Above, browner; below, duller buffy; more broadly streaked on breast. Length 6.00-7.00 (152.4-177.8); wing 3.37 (85.6); tail 2.53 (64.3); bill .46 (11.7); tarsus .90 (22.9).

Recognition Marks.—Sparrow size; brown above; buffy or brownish with dusky spots below; best known by tlip-yip notes repeated when rising from ground or flying overhead.

Nesting.—Nest: at high altitudes, a thick-walled structure of grasses and moss set into deep excavation in sloping hillside or in cranny of cliff. Eggs: 4-6, usually 5, so heavily speckled and spotted with reddish or dark brown as almost entirely to obscure the whitish ground color. Often, except upon close examination, the effect is of a uniform chocolate-colored egg. Av. size .77 × .57 (19.6 × 14.5). Season: June 15-July 25; one brood.

General Range.—North America at large, breeding in the higher parts of the Rocky and Cascade Mountains and in sub-Arctic regions; wintering in the Gulf States, Mexico, and Central America. Accidental in Europe.

Range in Washington.—Abundant during migrations; common summer resident in Cascade Mountains above timber-line; winters sparingly west of mountains.

Migrations.—Nomadic; retires from mountains early in September; moves southward across State Oct. 15-Dec. 15; northward April 1-May 15.

Authorities.—? Townsend, Journ. Ac. Nat. Sci., Phila., VIII., 1839, 154 (Columbia River). Anthus ludovicianus, Licht. Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. IX. pt. II., 1858, p. 233. T. C&S. L¹. Rh. D¹. Sr. Ra. D². J. B. E.

Specimens.—U. of W. P¹. Prov. B. E.

The American Pipit does not sustain the habitual dignity of the boreal breed. He is no clown, indeed, like our Chat, nor does he quite belong to the awkward squad with young Blackbirds; a trim form and a natty suit often save him from well merited derision, but all close observers will agree that there is a screw loose in his make-up somewhere. The whole Pipit race seems to be struggling under a strange inhibitory spell, cast upon some ancestor, perhaps, by one knows not what art of nodding heather bells or potency of subtly distilled Arctic moonshine. As the flock comes straggling down from the northland they utter unceasing yips of mild astonishment and self-reproach at their apparent inability to decide what to do next. Their indecision is especially exasperating as one rides along a trail which is closely flanked by a primitive rail fence, as I have often done in Okanogan County. One starts up ahead of you and thinks he will settle on the top rail and watch you go by. As his feet near the rail he decides he won’t, after all, but that he will go a few feet farther before alighting. If he actually does alight he instantly tumbles off with a startled yip, as tho the rail were hot and he had burnt his toes. Then he tries a post with no better success, until you get disgusted with such silly vacillation and inane yipping, and clap spurs to your horse, resolved to escape the annoyance of having to follow such dubious fortunes.

In social flight the Pipits straggle out far apart, so as to allow plenty of room for their chronic St. Vitus’s dance to jerk them hither or thither or up or down, without clashing with their fellows. Only a small percentage of those which annually traverse the State fly low enough to be readily seen; but when they do they are jolting along over the landscape and complaining at every other step. The note is best rendered tlip-yip, less accurately pip-it (whence of course the name); and a shower of these petulant sounds comes spattering down out of the sky when the birds themselves are nearly or quite invisible.

The fall migrations of this species appear to have a compound character. Birds which make their appearance early in September are likely to quarter themselves in a given locality for several weeks at a time, tho whether these represent the first refugees from the high North, or mark the practical retreat of our own mountaineers, we cannot tell. Late comers pass thru more rapidly, and the main host clears by late October, but stragglers may be found in any open lowland situation until late November. They are especially partial to prairies, close-cropped pastures, the gravelly shores and bars of rivers, lakes and ponds, and the shingle of sea-beaches. At Semiahmoo the great ricks of barnacle-covered piles, which are annually corded on shore at the close of the fishing season, are regarded in the light of a Pipit hotel. The birds not only shelter among the timbers, but, after the fashion of Sandpipers, glean busily from their surfaces where the marine creatures, thru exposure to the air, are dying a fragrant death.

The return movement of spring sets in early, and the main flight is more direct. But here there is suspicion of desultory wintering on the one hand (I have a record of forty birds seen on the Nisqually Flats, Feb. 10, 1906; and Fannin says they sometimes winter on Vancouver Island) and there is always a small percentage of loiterers who linger into May. Spring flocks may be looked for in freshly-plowed fields, where they feed attentively, often in absolute silence, moving about with “graceful, gliding walk, tilting the body and wagging the tail at each step, much in the manner of a Seiurus.”

Pipits are boreal breeders; but inasmuch as our own superb Alps claim kinship with the Arctic, there is no more favorable spot to study the nesting of the Pipits than upon the Cascades of northern Washington. At home the Pipit is a very different creature from the straggler of the long trail. On his native heather, surrounded by dwarfed fir trees, melting snow-fields, and splendid vistas of peak and cloud, he knows exactly what he wants and is quite capable of flying in a straight line.

All is bustle and stir along Ptarmigan Ridge,—the transverse rock-rib of Cascade Pass which divides the waters of Stehekin, Chelan, and the Columbia from those of the Cascade, Skagit, and Puget Sound. The season is late, June 23, 1906, and the snows have only just released the ridge at 6000 feet elevation. Slate-colored Sparrows are carolling tenderly from the thickets of stunted fir. Sierra Hermit Thrushes, those minstrels of heaven, flit elusively from clump to clump or pause to rehearse from their depths some spiritual strain. Leucostictes look in upon the scene in passing, but they hasten at a prudent thought to their loftier ramparts. The real busybodies of the place are the Pipits. Females, lisping suspiciously, hurry to and fro, discussing locations, matching straws, playfully rebuking over-bold swains, and hastily gulping insects on the side. The male birds hover about their mates solicitously—never helping, of course—or else sing lustily from prominent knolls and rocks.

The Pipit song in many of its phases is strikingly like that of the Rock Wren (Salpinctes obsoletus). It has the same vivacity and ringing quality, tho perhaps less power, and the similarity extends to the very phrasing. An alarm note runs pichoo pichoo pichoo, given six or seven times, rapidly and emphatically; while another, wee iich, wee iich, wee iich, is rendered, unless my eyes deceive me, with the same springing motion which characterizes the Wren. An ecstacy song of courting time (heard on Mount Rainier) runs twiss twiss twiss twiss (ad lib.), uttered as rapidly as the syllables may be said. It is delivered as the bird describes great slow circles in mid-air; and when the singer is exhausted by his efforts, he falls like a spent rocket to the ground.

For all this activity, however, the nests are hard to find. Finally, as we keep ascending the ridge, bare save for occasional patches of snow in the hollows, Jack spies an old nest, last year’s of course, in the recess of a soil tussock, completely overarched by earth. The secret is out, and we can search with more intelligence now. Soon I flush a female at her task of incubation. She has been digging out a pocket, or cave, in a moist bank which the snow had set free not above three days before. The earth removed from the interior is piled up for the lower rim, or wall, and a few rootlets, doubtless those secured in the process of excavation, have been culled out and laid horizontally along the edge of the dirt. The hole is about as large as my double fists, and the nest, when completed, evidently cannot be injured by falling snow.

In July of the following year, work was carried on in the Upper Horseshoe Basin, a few miles further north. The song period was evidently past, but a nest of five eggs slightly incubated, was taken from a heather slope on the 20th of the month. The sitting bird flushed from under the beating stick, but only after I had passed.

On the 17th, a venturesome climb over the rock-wall which fronts the glacier of the Upper Basin, had yielded only a last year’s Leucosticte’s nest. As I was nearly down the cliff and breathing easier, a Pipit flew unannounced from a spur of the cliff upon which I was standing to the one beyond. Evidently she had heard the call of her mate, for the instant she lighted upon the cliff he was near her. But budge not a foot would he; whether he was suspicious or only exacting, one could not quite tell. At any rate he kept giving vent to a ringing metallic note of apprehension. The female coaxed with fluttering wings, and moved slowly forward as she did so, finally securing the worm from her reluctant lord, when—whisk! she was back again and out of sight around the cliff on which I stood. I hastened forward to the furthest outstanding point which gave a partial view of the wall’s face. No bird was in sight. Then I tossed pebbles against the cliff-side, and from beneath the second summons fluttered the frightened Pipit. Five beautiful eggs, of a warm weathered oak, rather than “mahogany” shade, lay in a niche of rock. A tussock of grass clung just below, and a dwarf shrub afforded a touch of drapery above; while from the outstretched hand a flint-flake might have fallen clean of the wall to the ice, a hundred feet below. The male bird continued his outcries from the distant cliff, but the female at no time reappeared.

With the advance of summer, the Pipits lead their broods about the disrobed peaks, even to the very summits, as do the noble Leucostictes. Knowing this, we may readily excuse any little eccentricities which appear in our friends during the duller seasons. The Pipit has redeemed himself.

Turdidæ—The Thrushes

No. 91.
TOWNSEND’S SOLITAIRE.

A. O. U. No. 754. Myadestes townsendi (Aud.).

Synonyms.—Townsend’s Flycatching Thrush. Townsend’s Thrush. Townsend’s Flycatcher.

Description.—Adults: General color smoky gray, lighter below, bleaching on throat, lower belly and under tail-coverts; a prominent white orbital ring; wings and tail dusky; wing quills crossed by extensive tawny area originating at base of innermost secondary and passing obliquely backward—this appears in the closed wing as a spot at the base of the exposed primaries but does not reach nearer the edge of the wing than the fifth or sixth primary; another obscure tawny or whitish patch formed by subterminal edging on outer webs of seventh and eighth (sometimes ninth) primaries; greater coverts and tertials tipped with white of varying prominence; a blotch of white on each side of tail involving distal third of half of outermost rectrix, tip of second and sometimes tip of third. Bill and feet black; irides brown. Young birds are heavily spotted with buff above and below (showing thereby Turdine affinities),—above, each feather has a single large spot (rhomboidal in some, heart-shaped in others) of buff, centrally, and is edged with blackish, thus producing a scaled appearance; below, the ground color is a pale buff or buffy gray with blackish edgings to feathers. Length about 8.00 (203.2); wing 4.60 (117); tail 4.05 (103); bill .49 (12.4); tarsus .79 (20).

Recognition Marks.—Chewink size; brownish gray coloration with spots of white (or pale tawny) on tail and wings. No black, as compared with a Shrike.

Nesting.—Nest: in hollow under bank, cranny or rock wall or in upturned roots of tree, of sticks, coarse weeds and trash, lined with rootlets. Eggs: 4, grayish white spotted with pale brown, chiefly about larger end. Av. size, .96 × .70 (24.4 × 17.8). Season: May or June; one brood.

General Range.—Western North America, breeding chiefly in mountainous districts, from northwestern Mexico to Alaska and Yukon Territory, wintering irregularly from British Columbia (Sumas) southward, straggling into Mississippi Valley during migrations.

Range in Washington.—Not uncommon spring and fall migrant thruout the State, summer resident in the mountains to the limit of trees and elsewhere irregularly to sea level; partially resident in winter west of the Cascade Mountains.

Authorities.—? Ptiliogonys townsendi, Townsend, Narrative, 1839, p. 338. Myiadestes townsendii Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. IX. 1858, 321. T. C&S. D¹. Ra. J. B. E.

Specimens.—U. of W. P¹. Prov. B. BN. E.

“Of this singular bird I know nothing but that it was shot by my friend, Captain W. Brotchie, of the Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company, in a pine forest near Fort George, (Astoria). It was the only specimen seen.” In these words J. K. Townsend, the pioneer ornithologist of the Pacific Northwest, records[32] the taking of the first example of this species known to science.

The bird thus presented as a conjectural native of Washington, has long been a puzzle to naturalists. It has been called Flycatcher, Thrush, and a combination of the two; but the name Solitaire seems to express both our noncommittal attitude toward the subject, and the demure independence with which the bird itself proceeds to mind its own affairs. Barring the matter of structure, which the scientists have now pretty well thrashed out, the bird is everything by turns. He is Flycatcher in that he delights to sit quietly on exposed limbs and watch for passing insects. These he meets in mid-air and bags with an emphatic snap of the mandibles. He is a Shrike in appearance and manner, when he takes up a station on a fence-post and studies the ground intently. When its prey is sighted at distances varying from ten to thirty feet, it dives directly to the spot, lights, snatches, and swallows, in an instant; or, if the catch is unmanageable, it returns to its post to thrash and kill and swallow at leisure. During this pouncing foray, the display of white in the Solitaire’s tail reminds one of the Lark Sparrow. Like the silly Cedar-bird, the Solitaire gorges itself on fruit and berries in season. Like a Thrush, when the mood is on, the Solitaire skulks in the thickets or woodsy depths, and flies at the suggestion of approach. Upon alighting it stands quietly, in expectation that the eye of the beholder will thus lose sight of its ghostly tints among the interlacing shadows.

And so one might go on comparing indefinitely, but the bird is entitled to shine in its own light. The Solitaire is sui generis—no doubt of that. As soon as we establish for it a certain line of conduct, the bird does something else. We banish it to the mountains for the nesting season—a pair nests in a railroad cut near Renton, altitude 200 feet. We describe to our friends the beauty of its song—they go to its sanctuaries and the bird is silent. A bird of such dainty mould should winter in the South. It does,—at times. It also winters at Sumas on our northern border. This poet of the solitudes, he should avoid the haunts of men. He does, usually. But another time he may be seen hopping from bush to log in a suburban swamp, or moping under the edge of a new sidewalk. Indeed, I once saw a Solitaire flutter up from under a passenger coach, as it lay in station. He had happened to spy some bread crumbs and there was nothing to hinder save the conductor’s brisk “all aboard.” Surely such a bundle of contradictions you never did see—and all belied by an expression of lamb-like artlessness and dolce far niente, which would do credit to a rag-doll.

All observers testify to the vocal powers of the Solitaire, and some are most extravagant in the bird’s praises. My own notes are very meager. A song heard on Church Mountain, in Whatcom County, May 12, 1905, is characterized as “a dulcet strain of varied notes. It reminds one strongly of the Sage Thrasher, but it is somewhat less impetuous.” In view of this meagerness, I venture to quote at length two older accounts, now hidden away in volumes not easily accessible. Dr. J. S. Newberry first encountered the Solitaire in the cañon of the Mptolyas River, at the base of Mount Jefferson (Or.), and declared its song to be full, rich, and melodious, like that of a Mimus[33] “We followed down the river in the bottom of the cañon; all day the gorge was filled with a chorus of sweet sounds from hundreds and thousands of these birds, which from their monotonous color, and their habit of sitting on the branch of a tree projecting into the void above the stream, or hanging from some beetling crag, and flying out in narrow circles after insects precisely in the manner of the Flycatchers I was disposed to associate with them.

“Two days afterward in the cañon of Psuc-see-que Creek, of which the terraced banks were sparsely set with low trees of the western cedar (J. occidentalis), I found these birds numerous. * * * With the first dawn of day they began their songs, and at sunrise the valley was perfectly vocal with their notes. Never, anywhere, have I heard a more delightful chorus of bird music. Their song is not greatly varied, but all the notes are particularly clear and sweet, and the strain of pure gushing melody is as spontaneous and inspiring as that of the Song Sparrow. At this time, September 30, these birds were feeding on the berries of the cedar; they were very shy, and could only be obtained by lying concealed in the vicinity of the trees which they frequented.”

Mr. T. M. Trippe, speaking for the Clear Creek Cañon in Colorado, says[34]: “In summer and fall its voice is rarely heard; but as winter comes on, and the woods are well-nigh deserted by all save a few Titmice and Nuthatches, it begins to utter occasionally a single bell-like note that can be heard at a great distance. The bird is now very shy; and the author of the clear, loud call, that I heard nearly every morning from the valley of Clear Creek, was long a mystery to me. Toward the middle and latter part of winter, as the snow begins to fall, the Flycatching Thrush delights to sing, choosing for its rostrum a pine tree in some elevated position, high up above the valleys; and not all the fields and groves, and hills and valleys of the Eastern States, can boast a more exquisite song; a song in which the notes of the Purple Finch, the Wood Thrush, and the Winter Wren are blended into a silvery cascade of melody, that ripples and dances down the mountain sides as clear and sparkling as the mountain brook, filling the woods and valleys with ringing music. At first it sings only on bright clear mornings; but once fairly in the mood, it sings at all hours and during the most inclement weather. Often while travelling over the narrow, winding mountain roads, toward the close of winter, I have been overtaken and half-blinded by sudden, furious storms of wind and snow, and compelled to seek the nearest tree or projecting rock for shelter. In such situations I have frequently listened to the song of this bird, and forgot the cold and wet in its enjoyment. Toward spring, as soon as the other birds begin to sing, it becomes silent as tho disdainful of joining the common chorus, and commences building its nest in May, earlier than almost any other bird. During this season it deserts the valleys, and confines itself to partially wooded hill-tops.”

No. 92.
WILLOW THRUSH.

A. O. U. No. 556 a. Hylocichla fuscescens salicicola Ridgway.

Synonym.—Western Wilson Thrush.

Description.—Adult: Above, dull tawny-brown, uniform; wing-quills shading to brownish fuscous on inner webs; below white, the throat, except in the upper middle, and the breast, tinged with cream-buff, and spotted narrowly and sparingly with wedge-shaped marks of the color of the back; sides and flanks more or less tinged with brownish gray; sides of head buffy-tinged, with mixed brown, save on whitish lores; bill dark above, light below; feet light brown. Adult male, length 7.25-7.75 (184.2-196.9); wing 3.93 (100); tail 2.95 (75); bill .55 (14); tarsus 1.18 (30).

Recognition Marks.—Sparrow to Chewink size; dull cinnamon brown above; breast buffy, lightly spotted.

Nesting.—Nest: of leaves, bark-strips, weed-stems and trash, lined with rootlets; placed at height of two or three feet in thickets or, rarely, on ground. Eggs: 3-5, plain greenish blue, not unlike those of the Robin. Av. size, .90 × .65 (22.8 × 16.5). Season: first or second week in June; one brood.

General Range.—Western interior districts of United States and Canada; breeding from North Dakota and Manitoba west to interior of British Columbia and southward to Nevada, Utah and Colorado; southward during migrations thru Arizona, etc., to Brazil, also thru the Mississippi Valley and, casually, eastward.

Range in Washington.—Summer resident in the hilly districts of northwestern Washington,—Blue Mountains(?).

Authorities.—Howe, Auk, XVII. Jan. 1900, p. 19 (Spokane). T(?). J.

Specimens.—Prov.

The Willow Thrush shares with its even more retiring cousin, the Olive-back, the forests of the northwestern portion of the State. Here it may be found in the seclusion of spring draws and alder bottoms, or in the miscellaneous cover which lines the banks of the larger streams. It is confined almost entirely to the vicinity of water, and spends much of its time on the damp ground poking among the fallen leaves and searching the nooks and corners of tree-roots. Since the bird is but a flitting shade, one cannot easily determine its color-pattern, and must learn rather the range and quality of its notes. The bird is, rather than has, a voice, an elusive voice, a weird and wonderful voice. And only after one has heard the song, with its reverberant, sweet thunder, and its exquisitely diminishing cadences, as it wells up at eventide from some low thicket, may one be said to know the Willow Thrush.

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.

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.

The Russet-backed Thrush is not much given to song, altho on occasion the woodside may ring with the simple melody of its wee loo weelo weeloeee[35]. Other notes are more notable and characteristic; and by these one may trace the bird’s every movement without recourse to sight. Quit, or hwit, is a soft whistled note of inquiry and greeting, by which the birds keep in constant touch with each other, and which they are nowise disinclined to use in conversations with strangers. Hwootaylyochtyl is the name which the Quillayute lad gives the bird, the first syllable being whistled rather than spoken, in imitation of the bird’s note. At the friendly call the Thrush comes sidling over toward you thru the brush, until you feel that you could put your hand on it if you would; but the bird remains invisible, and says, quit, quit, with some asperity, if you disregard the convenances.

A longer call-note, of sharper quality, queee, may be as readily imitated, altho its meaning in the bush is uncertain. The bird has also a spoken note, a sort of happy purring, which I call the coordaddy cry. In this the daddy notes are given in from one to six syllables, and are spoken “trippingly on the tongue.”

Recalling again the queee note, we are surprised to find that it is the commonest sound heard during migrations. At midnight when a solemn hush is over all besides, this weird note comes down from the sky at any height, from every angle, a greeting en passant from the voyageurs, the tenderest, the most pathetic, the most mysterious voice of Nature. There are a dozen variations of pitch and tone, quééé, quee, kooo, etc., but the theme is one, and the quality is that of the Russet-backed Thrush. Now it is incredible that any one species should so abound to the exclusion of all others, or that one alone should speak, while others flit by silently. Moreover, the intermittent utterance of a single bird proclaims the rate at which that bird is moving, and oftener argues for the passing of the smaller species, Warblers and the like. Repeated observation would make it appear certain that this quee note is the common possession of many, perhaps of all species of migrant song birds, a sort of Esperanto for “Ho, Comrade!” by which the flying legions of the night are bound together in a great fellowship.

Much of the apparent difference in the call-notes of these night-birds is explained when we remember that they are reaching us from different angles. Thus, the quee of a rapidly approaching bird is raised sharply and shortened, quĕĕ; while the same voice, in passing, falls to a ghostly kwoo, at least a musical third below. It is, perhaps, needless to add that practiced lips may join this mystic chorus and hold delightful converse with these brothers of the air—may, indeed, provoke them to trebled utterance in passing.

But only the Russet-backed Thrush may repeat this cabalistic note, by day. He is the bugler in that greatest of all armies and he must needs keep in practice while on furlough.

Russet-backs are tardy migrants, seldom arriving before the first week in May; and they are off again for the Southland by the first week in September. Two instances are on record, however, of the bird’s wintering hereabouts. On the 7th of March, 1891, several birds were “engaged in conversation” by the writer near Tacoma; and on the 22nd of January, 1907, two birds were encountered on the University grounds in Seattle. In the latter instance the birds would not disclose themselves, altho they passed half way around me in the thicket, uttering their characteristic and unmistakable notes.

In home building this Thrush makes no effort at nest concealment, trusting rather to the seclusion of its haunts. The materials which enter into the construction of the nest are themselves in a measure protective, especially in those numerous instances in which the exterior is composed entirely of green moss. At other times, twigs, bark-strips, and grasses are used; but the two things which give character to the nest of this Thrush are the mud-cup, or matrix, of mud and leaf-mold, and the lining of dried leaf-skeletons. I have surprised a mother Russet at her task of cup-moulding, and verily her bib was as dirty as that of any child making mud pies. For altho the beak serves for hod and trowel, the finishing touches, the actual moulding, must be accomplished by pressure of the bird’s breast.