296 RP^POTIT OF NEW JEESEY STATE MUSEUM. 



The Catbird is a trustful Ijird, nesting about our houses just as 

 long as we leave him some dense shrubbery and some fallen leaves 

 among which to scratch for food. Half of the Catbird's food con- 

 sists of insects — ants, grasshoppers and caterpillars for the most part. 

 Of his vegetable diet part is garden fruit, but the bulk consists of 

 wild berries. Where the Catbird proves destructive, a simple ex- 

 pedient is the planting of wild cherry trees or other wild fruit, which 

 is always preferred to cultivated kinds. 



In the southern counties, especially along the coast, and casually fur- 

 ther north, the Catbird occurs as a straggler in winter. Dr. C. C. 

 Abbott has found them at Trenton, Mr. Ehoads^ secured one at At- 

 lantic City, December 26th, 1892, Mr. D. N. McCadden^ another at 

 Avalon, February 11th, 1894, and Dr. W. E. Hughes- one at Stone 

 Harbor, December 31st, 1905, while Mr. W. L. Baily^ saw several at 

 Holly Beach in the winter of 1897-8, Mr. W. D. W. Miller* saw one 

 at Plainfield, December 30th, 1897, and W. B. Evans saw one at 

 Moorestown, December 25th, 1903.^ 



705 Toxostoma rufum (Linnasus). 

 Brown Thrasher. 



PLATE 77. 



Adults. — Length, 11-12. Wing, 4.30. Above, bright cinnamon rufous ; below, 

 white, faintly tinged with buff on the sides and strongly streaked with black 

 across the lower neck and breast and down the sides of the body, some of the 

 streaks passing to cinnamon on the sides of the breast ; under tail-coverts, buff ; 

 wing-coverts dusky towards the end and tipped with buffy-white, forming two 

 wing bars. In autumn the buff wash below is stronger. 



Young in first summer — Similar, but streaked above with dull brown. 



Nest a bulky structure of twigs lined with rootlets in low bushes or on the 

 ground ; eggs, three to five, grayish-white, minutely speckled all over with cin- 

 namon-brown, 1.05 X .80. 



Common summer resident. Arrives April 1st (April 21:tli), de- 

 parts October 22d. Casual in winter. 



The Thrasher is a conspicuous bird in thickets and along fence rows 



' Stone, Birds of E. Pa. and N. J. 



= Cassinia, 1906, p. 58. 



= Abst. Proc. D. V. O. C, III., p. 3. 



* Osprey. II.. p. 91. 



^ Bird Lore, February, 1904. 



