BROWN THRASHER 371 



Tilford Moore (MS.) saw a thrasher feeding three young cowbirds. 



Audubon's spirited plate shows a thrasher's nest being attacked by 

 a blacksnake, with several thrashers rallying to the rescue. He 

 (1841b) reports that the snake was finally killed and one injured bird 

 rescued. I once saw a pair of thrashers making a great fuss around a 

 bunch of oak scrub, where I soon discovered the cause of their anxiety ; 

 a large blacksnake was coiled about their nest and had evidently 

 swallowed the eggs or young, as the nest was empty. I tried to kill 

 the snake, but the underbrush was too thick and it escaped. 



Thrashers are not immune from parasites, even while still in the 

 egg. Bagg and Eliot (1937) publish the following note from Lewis 

 O.Shelley: 



The Thrasher is an uncommon summer resident here [Westmoreland, N. H.], 

 and it is a curious fact that, of all the nests I have seen, each one harbored 

 one or more "wormy" eggs. Outwardly seeming in perfect shape and condition, 

 an egg turned over might reveal a neat round hole, one mm. in diameter, bored 

 in the under side, or more than one such hole. I found that, if blown, the egg- 

 shell crumbled after a short time, due to the lining being eaten together with 

 the yolk and albumen. By dissecting two eggs from a nest of half-fledged young, 

 I found the grubs to be small white oval shapeless forms capable of great 

 elongation when feeding and very closely resembling, while smaller, the Tachinids 

 that so commonly sting larvae of various Saturniidae caterpillars ; but the 

 mature insect is more closely akin, in form, to the 'Hymenoptera or membranous- 

 winged flies, with well-developed maxillise, probably the organ wherewith the 

 parasite drills an exit through the egg-shell when the time arrives. It is notable 

 that this parasite differs from the Tachinids in that it emerges at perfection 

 and not as a grub. 



Harold S. Peters (1936) lists three species of lice, five of mites, two 

 of ticks, and one fly, as external parasites on the brown thrasher. 



Winter. — The brown thrasher is a permanent resident throughout 

 the southern portion of its range, but more or less migratory through 

 the greater part of it. Most of the thrashers leave New England dur- 

 ing fall, mainly in October, but there are a number of wintering records 

 as far north as Massachusetts. 



Henry Nehrling (1893) gives a very good account of its migra- 

 tion and winter haunts : 



Unobserved, silent usually from thicket to thicket, and in bushes along 

 streams and rivers, the Brown Thrush migrates southward, ordinarily during 

 October. The Southern States, especially those bordering on the Gulf of 

 Mexico, are the Brown Thrasher's winter quarters. I have found the bird 

 in southeastern Texas from December to March. They usually remain near 

 the water where thicket succeeds thicket. They are especially common where 

 the magnolia, cherry-laurel, holly, dense blackberry and Mexican mulberry 

 bushes, Cherokee roses, and vines of many species, grow. The ground swarms 

 with insects of many kinds, the old leaves cover larvae and snails, and the 

 bushes are rich in berries. In these thickets the Brown Thrush leads a very 

 secluded existence, in company with the Hermit Thrush, Towhee Buntings, 

 White-crowned and White-throated Sparrows, and others. It is here so shy 

 and knows so well how to screen itself from view that it is but rarely seen. 



