SONG-BIRDS. Thrasher 



rust-red which covers his entire back, his habit of twitching 

 and thrashing his tail when feeding on the ground, and his 

 bold, swinging flight are certain marks of identification. His 

 song is heard early in the morning from the bushes of some 

 pasture or thickly brushed waste, but later in the day he 

 usually perches on the topmost twig of a tree, and with 

 swelling breast and drooping tail pours forth his freest 

 music; and under no circumstances does he sing when 

 near his nest. 



The song has the same colloquial quality as the Catbird's, 

 without its extreme rapidity, and one frequently detects in 

 it the pauses peculiar to the Wood Thrush. I have tried in 

 vain to reduce it to syllables, and find the result is mislead- 

 ing; but the song is always bold and ejaculatory, as Thoreau 

 describes it : " Upon the topmost spray of a tree sings the 

 Brown Thrasher, or Eed Mavis, as some love to call him, — 

 all the morning glad of your society (or, rather, I should say, 

 of your lands), that would find out another farmer's field if 

 yours were not here. While you are planting the seed he 

 cries, ^ Drop it, drop it, — cover it up, cover it up, — pull it 

 up, pull it up, pull it up.' " 



A different mood, that of a reflective shoemaker whom 

 Wilson riagg knew, wove the song into other words, but 

 with the same accented value : " Look up, look up ! — Glory 

 to God, glory to God! — Hallelujah, Amen, Videlicet!" 



The Thrasher is something of a fruit thief, and I encoun- 

 tered one this June, in a very picturesque attitude, swooping 

 directly toward me, wings extended, while from his beak, 

 hanging by their twin stalks, were a pair of luscious, ripe 

 cherries. His fruit and corn eating proclivities are much 

 exaggerated, however, and are inconsiderable, in view of 

 his usefulness as an insect-destroyer. The Thrasher's period 

 of song ends with June, or, at the latest, during the first 

 week in July, and Mr. Bicknell says that it does not seem 

 to have a second singing period after the moulting. 



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