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164 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
streaks of dark-brown, excepting on the chin, throat, middle of the belly, and under 
tail coverts; these spots, anteriorly, are reddish-brown in their terminal portion; the 
inner surface of the wing and the inner edges of the primaries are cinnamon; the con- 
cealed portion of the quills otherwise is dark-brown; the median and greater wing 
coverts become blackish-brown towards the end, followed by white, producing two 
conspicuous bands; the tail feathers are all rufous, the external ones obscurely tipped 
with whitish; the shafts of the same color with the vanes. 
Length, eleven and fifteen one-hundredths inches; wing, four and fifteen one- 
hundredths; tail, five and twenty one-hundredths inches; tarsus, one and thirty 
one-hundredths; iris, golden-yellow. 
J 
Probably none of our summer visitors are better known, 
and none are greater favorites than this bird. Its beautiful 
song and well-known beneficial habits have endeared it to 
the farmer, who takes it under his protection, as he should 
all the Thrushes, and encourages its approach to the garden 
and orchard. The Brown Thrush arrives from the South 
about the middle of April in Connecticut and Rhode Island, 
and the 10th of May in Maine and the other northern dis- 
tricts.. The birds seem to be mated before their arrival 
here, as they are almost always observed in pairs at their 
first appearance. The nest is built about the middle of 
May, sooner or later, according to latitude. It is usually 
placed in a bush or thicket of briers or vines, sometimes on 
the ground at the foot of a clump of bushes. It is com- 
posed first of a layer of twigs, then leaves and strips of 
cedar and grape-vine bark, and the whole is covered with 
fibrous roots: the nest is pretty deeply hollowed, and lined 
with fine roots and hairs. The eggs are from three to five 
in number. Their color is a greenish or dirty white, over 
-which are thickly sprinkled minute dots of reddish-brown : 
their shape is ovate, and their dimensions vary from 1.16 
by .80 inch to 1.06 by .76 inch. A great number before me 
exhibit these variations, which probably are the greatest of 
this species, as the eggs are generally nearly of a size. Four 
eggs in a nest collected in New Hampshire have the follow- 
ing measurements: 1.12 by .78 inch, 1.12 by .76 inch, 1.08 
by .76 inch, 1.06 by .76 inch. But one brood is reared in 
the season in the Northern States. 
