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Range: Eastern North America, west to the Plains, Alaska, and eastern Siberia, north to the Arctic coast, south in winter to Costa Rica.

This Thrush is one of the rarest in southern New Eng-land. It is a near relative of the Olive-backed Thrush, from which it differs in having gray sides to the head and in being somewhat larger. A few of the Gray-cheeked Thrushes come to the garden and lane every spring and fall; but even these migratory visits are very irregular. Bradford Torrey, whose White Mountain experience has brought him into intimate contact with Bicknell's Thrush (as those individuals which breed in the mountains of New York and New England are called) during its season of song, says that "... while the Gray-cheek's song bears an evident resemblance to the Veery's, ... the two are so unlike in pitch and rhythm that no reasonably nice ear ought ever to confound them."

The song is one of the most infrequent sounds in this locality; but I have heard it three times in the lane, and have come within identifying range of the singer, attracted and aided by Mr. Torrey's description and syllabication.^[1]

Olive-backed Thrush: Turdus ustulatus swainsoni.

Plate 7.

Length: 7-1.50 inches.

Male and Female: Yellowish eye ring. Head and back olive-brown, deepest on wings and tail. Buff breast and throat, deepening in colour on the sides and speckled everywhere but on the throat with arrow-shaped blackish spots. Dark bill; feet pale brown.

Song: Of the same quality as the Wood Thrush's, but less inspiring, and tinged with melancholy.

Season: Arrives in May, often in company with White-throated Spar-rows, passes on in early May, and returns in October.

Breeds: In mountainous parts of southern New England and northward.

Nest: In low trees and bushes, like that of Wood Thrush minus the mud.

Eggs: 4-5, greenish blue, freely spotted with brown.

Range: Eastern North America and westward to the upper Columbia River and East Humboldt Mountains, straggling to the Pacific coast.

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1. "The Foot-Path Way," Houghton, Mifflin & Co.