Hermit Thrush (Turdus Aonalaschkae Pallasii) Thrush Family
Called also: SWAMP ANGEL; LITTLE THRUSH

Length -- 7.25 to 7.5 inches. About one-fourth smaller than the robin. Male and Female -- Upper parts olive-brown, reddening near the tail, which is pale rufous, quite distinct from the color of the back. Throat, sides of neck, and breast pale buff. Feathers of throat and neck finished with dark arrow-points at tip; feathers of the breast have larger rounded spots. Sides brownish gray. Underneath white. A yellow ring around the eye. Smallest of the thrushes. Range -- Eastern parts of North America. Most common in the United States to the plains. Winters from southern Illinois and New Jersey to Gulf. Migrations -- April. November. Summer resident.

The first thrush to come and the last to go, nevertheless the hermit is little seen throughout its long visit north. It may loiter awhile in the shrubby roadsides, in the garden or the parks in the spring before it begins the serious business of life in a nest of moss, coarse grass, and pine-needles placed on the ground in the depths of the forest, but by the middle of May its presence in the neighborhood of our homes becomes only a memory. Although one never hears it at its best during the migrations, how one loves to recall the serene, ethereal evening hymn! "The finest sound in Nature," John Burroughs calls it. "It is not a proud, gorgeous strain like the tanager's or the grosbeak's," he says; "it suggests no passion or emotion -- nothing personal, but seems to be the voice of that calm, sweet solemnity one attains to in his best moments. It realizes a peace and a deep, solemn joy that only the finest souls may know."