BROWN THRASHER 363 



brought it back to the nest amid angry protests from the parent. In 

 this outburst she dropped her imitation morsel, and I took particular 

 pains to carefully retrieve and examine it. 



Plumages. — I have not seen any young brown thrashers in natal 

 down. The juvenile plumage is softer and looser, less compact, and 

 easily recognized. It resembles the adult plumage in pattern but is 

 paler and duller throughout; the top of the head is darker and the 

 rump lighter, and all of the upper surface is more or less streaked or 

 spotted with dusky ; the wing bars are buffy, and the tertials are edged 

 and tipped with buffy ; the underparts are dull white, the streaks and 

 spots being more nvmierous and less sharply defined. The iris in the 

 young bird is gray. 



A postjuvenal molt occurs late in summer or early in fall, beginning 

 the last of July, and involving the contour plumage and most of the 

 wing coverts, but not the rest of the wings or the tail. This produces 

 a first winter plumage, which is practically indistinguishable from 

 that of the adult at the same season. 



Adults have one complete annual molt, the postnuptial, in July and 

 August. In fresh fall plumage the colors are darker and richer than 

 they are in spring, the upper surface being deep cinnamon-rufous, and 

 on the lower surface the throat, sides, and crissum are washed with 

 ochraceous-buff ; the wing coverts are cinnamon-rufous, and the wing 

 bands are buffy white. There is no evidence of a spring molt, but wear 

 and fading are considerable, the buffy shades disappearing and the 

 whole plumage becoming more or less ragged before midsummer. 

 The sexes are alike in all plumages. 



Food. — E. H. Forbush (1929) gives a very good account of the 

 food of the brown thrasher, based largely on Prof. Beal's (Beal, Mc- 

 Atee, and Kalmbach, 1916) report: 



An examination of 266 stomachs of the bird from various parts of the country 

 was made by Prof. F. E. L. Beal of the Biological Survey, and it showed that the 

 food consisted of 37.38 percent vegetal and 62.62 percent animal food, the latter 

 nearly all insects. The insect food was rather evenly divided among the various 

 orders. Beetles were eaten regularly the year round. Such pests as May 

 beetles, white grubs, twelve-spotted cucumber beetles, many weevils, including 

 the cotton-boll weevil, curculios, snap-beetles and wire-worms, rose-beetles, 

 strawberry-crown girdlers and wood-boring beetles, caterpillars, including 

 canker-worms, army-worms, cut-worms and hairy caterpillars such as the tent 

 and gipsy caterpillars, also bugs of many kinds, especially those that eat berries, 

 also leaf-hoppers, tree-hoppers and cicadas, quantities of grasshoppers and 

 locusts and many crickets are eaten, also many of the ants that destroy timber. 

 A small proportion of beneficial ground-beetles are taken, and very few wasps 

 and bees ; daddy-long-legs, sow-bugs, small batrachians, lizards and snakes are 

 taken more or less. 



Professor Beal (Beal, McAtee, and Kalmbach, 1916) says that beetles 

 form the largest item in the thrasher's food, 18.14 percent ; caterpillars 

 come next, 5.95 percent ; other insects are eaten in much smaller quan- 



