The Brown Thrasher 43 



because, occasionally, he does eat a little fruit. 

 It seems to be a dreadful sin for a fellow in 

 feathers to help himself to a strawberry or a 

 cherry or a little grain now and then, although, 

 having eaten quantities of insects that, but 

 for him, would have destroyed them, who has 

 earned a better right to a share of the profits ? 



Do you think the brown thrasher looks any 

 more like a cuckoo than he does like a thrush? 

 Simply because he is nearly as long as the dull 

 brownish cuckoo and has a brown back, 

 though of quite a different tawny shade, 

 some boys and girls say it is difficult to tell 

 the two birds apart. The cuckoo glides through 

 the air as easily as if he were floating *down 

 stream, whereas the thrasher's flight, like 

 the wren's, is tilting, uneven, flapping, and 

 often jerky. If you make good use of your 

 sharp eyes, you will be able to tell many birds 

 by their flight alone, long before you can see the 

 colour of their feathers. The passive cuckoo has 

 no speckles on his light breast, and the yellow- 

 billed cuckoo, at least, has white thumb-nail 

 spots on his well-behaved tail, which he never 

 thrashes, twitches, and balances as the active, 

 suspicious thrasher does his. Moreover the 

 cuckoo's notes sound like a tree-toad's rattle, 

 while the thrasher's song — a merry peal of music 

 — entrances every listener. He seems rather 

 proud of it, to tell the truth, for although at 



