BROWN THRASHER. 
with that remarkable and lively medley, strenuously 
continued at times for two or three minutes, which is 
indeed his love song. He isa bird with an uneasy and 
restless disposition, shifting his perch, dodging between 
the leaves, bobbing his tail up and down, raising his 
crest, puffing out his feathers, and otherwise showing 
his disapprobation of the intrusion on his private grounds 
whenever you approach to watch him. His only note at 
such a time is the harsh and nasal meou so suggestive of 
the cat. 
Brown The Thrasher, sometimes called the 
Thrasher Brown Thrush, is one of our finest singers 
Toxostoma 
ey 9 whose music is a medley of rapidly re- 
L. 11.25 inches peated tones not unlike those of the Cat- 
May ist bird. His color is a refined and delicate 
brown. Upper parts, wings, and tail light sienna 
brown; wing-coverts tipped with dull white; under 
parts white heavily streaked with black-sepia except on 
the throat and extreme under parts; eyes yellow. Fe- 
male similarly marked. Nest built of coarse twigs, 
grasses, and leaves, lined with fine rootlets and plant 
fibres; it is generally placed on or near the ground, but 
sometimes high in bushes, and not infrequently in low 
branches of trees. Egg blue-white finely speckled with 
sienna brown. This bird is distributed through eastern 
North America as far north as New Brunswick; it breeds 
from the Gulf States northward, and winters from Vir- 
ginia southward. 
The voice of the Brown Thrasher is so similar to that 
of the Catbird that one might be easily mistaken for 
the other; but there is an unvarying difference between 
the songs of the two birds: the Thrasher repeats his 
notes and the Catbird does not. Hence, we find the 
report in various books that the Thrasher advises the 
farmer about his various duties in emphatic insistence, 
thus: 
‘¢ Shuck it, shuck it; sow it, sow it; 
Plough it, plough it; hoe it, hoe it!” 
213 
