104 Sketches of Some Common Birds. 



is indulged in by many of our familiar birds, and is much 

 in vogue among the domestic fowls. 



Prof. S. A. Forbes, in his investigations of the food 

 habits of many of our common birds, has done the agri- 

 cultural interests of our State important service, and his 

 reports have elsewhere been referred to and quoted from. 

 His observations show that the food of the brown thrasher 

 consists partly of fragments of corn and other grains and 

 seeds, predaceous beetles, ants, caterpillars, thousand -legs, 

 and other similar insects. "It relishes the whole list of 

 garden fruits, and later in the season resorts, like the 

 other thrushes, to the wild fruits of the woods and 

 thickets." 



My own notes record the havoc made b}^ the brown 

 •thrashers in a tree of ripening pears. I have seen as 

 many as four birds at one time feeding in one small pear 

 tree in the heart of a village of two thousand inhabitants. 

 Tbeir manner of eating pears is to peck large mouthfuls 

 troni each pear within reach. Thus many pears are 

 spoiled for use though not entirely eaten. In their visits 

 to our orchards and gardens, the brown thrashers always 

 move with the skulking air before mentioned, so radically 

 different from the high-handed manner of the robin and 

 mockingbird. Col. (ross, in "Birds of Kansas," states 

 that they have a peculiar habit of beating captured in- 

 sects upon the ground or perch, knocking and thrashing 

 them about until dead (and removing the wings and legs 

 of the larger ones before swallowing), and for this reason 

 they are called thrashers. 



The species is sometimes known as the brown thrush, 

 but it is not a real thrush, and Dr. Coues says that the 

 thrashers are more like overgrown wrens. Persons who 

 are not acquainted with the brown thrasher may identify 

 it by the bright rusty red of the uj)per parts, the clear 

 white throat, the reddish white breast and sides marked 

 with spots of dark brown, the black bill (black except 

 the yellow base of the lower mandible), and the yellow 

 iris. Its length is about eleven inches, with an extent of 

 wing of thirteen or iourtcen inches. 



