WOOD THRUSH AND VEERY 377 



My creamy breast is speckled 

 (Perhaps you'd call it freckled) 

 Black and brown. 



My pliant russet tail 

 Beats like a frantic flail, 

 Up and down. 



In the top branch of a tree 

 You may chance to glance at me, 

 When I sing. 



But I'm very, very shy, 

 When I silently float by, 

 On the wing. 



Whew there! Hi there! Such a clatter! 

 What's the matter what's the matter? 

 Really, really? 



Digging, delving, raking, sowing, 

 Corn is sprouting, corn is growing, 



Plant it, plant it! 



Gather it, gather it! 



Thresh it, thresh it! 



Hide it, hide it, do! 



(I see it and you.) 



Oh! I'm that famous scratcher, 

 H-a-r-p-o-r-h-y-n-c-h-u-s r-u-f-u-s Thrasher. 

 Cloaked in brown. 



Its Food. While the brown thrush may take a little fruit or 

 grain, it is a good insect eater. As a ground feeder, scratching 

 among fallen leaves, it picks up many injurious insects, and, it 

 must be admitted, some useful forms as well the ground beetles, 

 for example. 



Wood Thrush and Veery. The first-named bird, a beautiful 

 singer, is about eight and one-fourth inches long, with distinct, 

 sharply outlined, large, round, black spots on the whitish breast 

 and under parts (Fig. 378). 



A closely allied thrush and also a beautiful singer is the Wilson 

 thrush or veery (Fig. 379). The latter species is a smaller bird, 

 a little over seven inches long; the white breast is more or less 

 tinged with cream and dotted with small, somewhat indistinct, 

 brownish, wedge-shaped spots. 



The upper parts of both of these birds are brown, but in the 

 veery the colors are not as bright as in the wood thrush. Both 

 lay greenish-blue eggs in a coarse nest, modelled somewhat after 



