BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 413 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Third quill longest; first shorter than the sixth; the pre- 

 vailing color dark plumbeous; tail greenish-black; the lateral 

 feathers obscurely tipped with plumbeous; the under tail cov- 

 erts dark brownish-chestnut. 



Length, 8.85; wing, 3.65; tail, 4; tarsus, 1.05. 



Habitat, eastern United States and British Provinces, includ- 

 ing Rocky Mountains. 



HARPORHYNCHUS RUFUS (L.) (705.) 

 BROWN THRASHER. 



The Brown Thrush like the Robin, must have arrived during 

 exceedingly rough weather if he escapes the instantaneous 

 recognition of the waiting, vigilant observer of the migration 

 of the birds. Under all ordinary circumstances, he will 

 announce his presence unmistakably by mounting the top-most 

 limb of some isolated tree, and pouring forth his clear, strong, 

 liquid song in a prolonged strain, embracing twenty or more 

 elementary modulations, rearranging their order at each voluble 

 repetition. The air seems literally burdened with his melody. 



All creation is summoned to witness his joy that he has once 

 more reached the very spot in all the earth wherein he would 

 spend the golden summer in rearing a new family of his own. 

 There is however considerable difference in the strength and 

 sweetness of different birds of the species, a fact as patent to 

 other species of wild bird warblers as to domestic songsters. 

 This delightful bird is one of the most welcome of all the hosts 

 which return to us in spring, but he is seldom heard after 

 incubation has been completed, except by those whose ears are 

 earliest open to the songs of birds in the mornings. About the 

 third week in May they build their nests of twigs, leaves, 

 strips of bark, and fibrous roots, and line them with fine roots 

 and hair. The nests are deeply hollowed, and variously 

 placed on the ground, or in a bush, a low evergreen, a brier 

 patch, &c, but usually not more than four feet above the ground. 



They lay five eggs, of a pale-bluish color, thickly spattered 

 with fine dots of reddish-brown. Two broods are successively 

 brought out in a season as a rule, the latter of which is the 

 first to leave us in the autumn. 



The parent birds are the last to depart, about the first week 

 in October, yet a resolute few linger in occasional years a week 

 or two later. 



