wing in normal position--temporarily) 41°) there were no thrashers to be seen or heard. Rhody, and the thrashers freeze while waiting for food from me. Cause: A hawk. I went to the Clearing. Rhody was sunning on a pile of tree prunings there; Neo (the singer) and his friend were on the fence. Without my calling or making significant motions, Rhody came and stationed himself in front of me in receptive attitude; Neo dropped down from the fence and ran toward me, but stopped half way and sat on a branch in the pile of prunings in frozen attitude. I thought it was because he caught sight of Rhody just between us, but Rhody was also frozen. I thought it strange that Rhody should freeze on seeing Neo approach. Neither would budge on being tossed worms. Just as I noticed that Neo's friend was also frozen, Rhody dashed into the bushes and a hawk flashed past my face. Now there was an overhanging oak branch at the level of my face only 6 feet away, and the hawk passed between the branch and me at the level of my eyes. As it retreated, I judged from its small size (especially) that it was a male sharp-shin. None of the birds went far away and in a minute or so the hawk had the audacity to come back for another look, but farther away from my face (40 feet ?). I got a gun and searched for the intruder without results. On returning to the Clearing I had little trouble in locating the thrashers and road-runner. Rhody was given his mouse and Neo came for his worms, his friend (mate?) watching from about 10 or 12 feet away, mostly in full view. Both talked continuously. I find the mate frequently utters word that is best represented by secret. To say that this bird looks like Nova is to say that one pea superciliary stripe, her irides, when seen in full sun and at the proper angle seemed to flash the bright reddish brown suspected (and recorded perhaps incorrectly) of Nova and, as these notes have shown of Neo's companion at other times, she has a peculiar, high- pitched song. Without attempting to be precise about it, my recol- lection of both is that it is a quick, nervous song with fewer of the fluting tones of Brownie and other males. As an extremely rough characterization: it has a sort of jigger, jigger, jee effect at times, not yet heard from other thrashers. Maybe it is a female thrasher characteristic, but Greenie, who seems in retrospect to have been an exceptional bird, did not have it. (My impression of Green- ie, when she was here, as the notes show, was that she was a young bird "taken in hand" by Brownie, early in her career, and that she had learned her song from him. Even when well in her second nesting cycle here, she still had the juvenal iris color). As an offset, however, to the resemblances of Nova and this new bird, there is the matter of tameness. This bird is already far more tolerant of the presence of man than Nova ever was. At 12:30 P.M. Rhody was at his old post on the west lot and Neo was near him. When I coo-cooed at him and coke-cooked he would draw back his head in the initial position of cooing, but I could hear nothing. Neo, however, ran toward me at once for worms. Once, when I put my hand through the fence he took a worm from it, but he did not like to do it. His mate was nearby in the bushes and they talk- ed. About 2:30 P.M. brilliant thrasher song sounded from the echo tree. A man (Bettencourt) working in a garden 200 yards from me, down in the valley below, called up to know if that was my bird, re- marking what a fine singer it was. I was not sure that it was Neo, but when it left in the direction of the cork elm, I went over there and Neo came to me for worms. Again his mate was with him.