252 HOMING WITH THE BIRDS 



of our best thrush singers, song sparrow, and oriole, 

 while he intersperses this charmingly melodious 

 performance with stray cries of the whippoor- 

 will, killdeer, and quail, and he imitates the whistle 

 of the redbird to perfection. He sings from the 

 bushes, doing his best work by no rule about ten 

 o'clock in the morning. No catbird ever sings 

 twice the same, since he is so purely an imitator 

 that he reproduces not only the sounds of birds 

 around him, but also the crowing of the barnyard 

 cock, the cries of the guinea and peacock, the squeal 

 of the pig, bawl of the calf, the whinny of the colt. 

 I have heard him reproduce even the rattle of 

 wheels on the loose floor of a bridge spanning the 

 Wabash River, while he could imitate the rattle of 

 loose spindles in a cart-wheel to perfection. 



I can think of no combination of letters, and I 

 have found none in the writings of any ornitholo- 

 gist, that will reproduce the tribal call of the brown 

 thrasher. It is a weird, wailing, whistled note. 

 Because his song is a medley, it is usually compared 

 with that of the catbird. The thrasher is a larger 

 bird, and his first difference from the catbird lies 

 in the fact that the catbird sings solely to please 

 himself, while in seclusion. The thrasher seems 

 to demand an audience. For exhibiting his best 

 art, he selects the highest perch he can find, where 

 he is sure to attract the attention of every bird and 

 human in sound of his voice. Then, as a rule, he 

 sings out loudly and clearly, all hough he can drop 



