42 Birds Every Child Should Know 



long-tailed brown thrasher for a thrush because 

 he has a rusty back and a speckled white breast, 

 which they seem to think is an exclusive thrush 

 characteristic, which it certainly is not. The 

 oven-bird and several members of the sparrow 

 tribe, among other birds, have speckled and 

 streaked breasts, too. The brown thrasher is 

 considerably larger than a thrush and his 

 habits are quite different. Watch him ner- 

 vously twitch his long tail, or work it up 

 and down like one end of a see-saw, or sud- 

 denly jerk it up erect while he sits at attention 

 in the thicket, then droop it when, after mount- 

 ing to a conspicuous perch, he lifts his head to 

 sing, and you will probably "guess right the 

 very first time" that he is a near relative of the 

 wrens, not a thrush at all. As a little sailor- 

 boy once said to me, " He carries his tell -tail 

 on the stern." 



Like his cousin, the catbird, the brown thrasher 

 likes to live in bushy thickets overgrown with 

 vines. Here, running over the ground among 

 the fallen leaves, he picks up with his long slen- 

 der bill, worms. May beetles and scores of other 

 kinds of insects that, but for him, would soon 

 find their way to the garden, orchard, and fields. 

 Yet few farmers ever thank him. Because 

 they don't often see him picking up the insects 

 in their cultivated land, they wrongly conclude 

 that he does them no benefit, only miscliief. 



