188 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 81. 



Brown Thrashers in these localities that references are here- 

 in made. The variations, believed to exist, relate in main 

 to their choice of habitats, and nesting sites, to the apparent 

 shyness of the species in one locality and its boldness 

 in the other, to which is added some comparison of 

 the relative abundance of the species in the two regions. 

 1 am told that it is not a common species in eastern 

 Massachusetts, whereas I class it as such in northeastern 

 Iowa. Its abundance in my neighborhood in 1912 is shown 

 by this : A half dozen pairs located their nests within 

 a quarter of a mile of our house ; two pairs of Brown 

 Thrashers nested on our grounds each bringing out two 

 broods, the next pair was about six hundred feet to the 

 northeast, and again to the northeast an eighth of a mile 

 from the third nest was the fourth pair, a quarter of a mile 

 westward of it was the fifth pair, and the same distance to 

 the southwest of their nest was the sixth pair. 



In eastern Massachusetts it is said to be a nesting bird of 

 the woodlands, rarely coming close to the homes of men to 

 build its nest. This may in part be due to the pruned, trim- 

 med, and shaven condition of trees, shrubs and lawns. I 

 remember once seeing a pair nesting in a hedge quite near a 

 house at Quaker Hill in eastern New York. It is a bird 

 that seeks a bit of thick and tangled growth in which to 

 build, but in Iowa it finds such places to its taste in the 

 man-planted trees and shrubs that grow upon prairie soil, 

 usually not far from human homes. It is eminently a house- 

 yard bird, although it sometimes nests in patches of bushy 

 second growth that have sprung up on clearings made in the 

 woods. 



Its nests in Massachusetts are said to be either on th;t 

 ground or in bushes from a foot to three feet from the 

 ground. In Iowa I have never found a nest nearer than 

 eighteen inches or two feet of the ground, one of these be- 

 ing in the lower branches of a spruce tree, the other in 

 a brush pile. Another was found built in a brush pile, but 

 farther from the ground, these are the only nests thu- 



