AP WOOD (THRUSH 
ment would cause her to rise quickly and 
stand motionless on the nest, watching 
me with eyes full of dread, and when this 
occurred I took myself away as speedily as 
possible. Cruel indeed would it be to 
torture that gentle mother-heart unneces- 
sarily. 
This summer, on a horizontal branch of a 
spreading apple-tree in a neighbor’s orchard, 
a pair of these thrushes placed their nest of 
mud and grasses. It was not more than 
seven feet from the ground and quite exposed 
to view. When we found it, sitting had 
begun, and the little brown mother brooded 
impartially upon her own blue eggs and the 
speckled egg of a cowbird that lay with 
them. Usually we removed the cowbird’s 
egg wherever found, but in this case curi- 
osity prompted us to leave it. It was later 
in developing than the others, and the young 
thrushes were four days old when their ugly 
foster brother broke his shell. The contrast 
between them was very interesting. The 
thrush babies were pink, plump, and naked, 
245 
