Thrushes 671 



esting family. This trim little bird, often called the Wagtail and Traveler's 

 Companion, has the general plumage glossy black, with a line over the eye and 

 the lower parts white. It is one of the most tame and familiar of the Australian 

 birds, says Mr. Gould, being constantly about the houses, gardens, and stock- 

 yards of the settlers, often running along the backs of cattle, horses, and sheep 

 in search of parasites, or hopping in the grass before the devouring mouths of 

 such animals, watching for startled insects. It passes most of its time on the 

 ground, over which it runs and darts with the utmost celerity, and when skirt- 

 ing the stream with tail erect and shaking from side to side, it presents an 

 appearance very similar to that of the Pied Wagtails. It builds a cup-shaped 

 nest, placing it often on a bare branch over water, and lays three or four creamy, 

 spotted eggs; at least three broods are reared in a season. 



THE THRUSHES 



(Family Turdidce) 



The mere mention of the word Thrush at once suggests musical ability 

 of a high order, and well it may, for the present group numbers among its mem- 

 bers some of the most exquisite songsters of the whole bird world. The ring- 

 ing flute-like notes of the Veery, the clear, pure come-to-me or e-o-lie of the 

 Wood Thrush, the solemn, mysterious, silvery, bell-like tones of the Hermit 

 Thrush, as they come to us from the cool depths of the forest, and the cheerful, 

 extended vocabulary of the Robin, have placed them one and all high in the 

 regard of lovers of bird music. The far-famed Nightingale of Europe, together 

 with the Throstle, or Song Thrush, and the Blackbird and Robin Redbreast, so 

 dear to English hearts, are all members of this widespread and highly musical 

 family. 



The TurdidcB, even as here restricted, are a large group, which, like many 

 other passerine families, interdigitates at so many points with contiguous groups 

 that it is difficult to draw any satisfactory circumscribing line. Some systema- 

 tists have made it broad enough to include not only the more typical Thrushes 

 and their obvious allies, but the Warblers (Sylviidce), Mockingbirds (MimidcE), 

 Dippers (Cinclidce), Gnatcatchers (Polioptila), etc., all of which, except possibly 

 the last, are here regarded as entitled to full family rank. The number of 

 minor groups that it is thought necessary to recognize within the family is also 

 a subject for more or less extensive disagreement, but it is perhaps better to 

 recognize a goodly number, as Dr. Sharpe has done in his "Hand List of Birds," 

 and thus obviate the necessity of drawing the diagnosis so broad. The family 

 comprises between five and six hundred forms disposed among some seventy 

 genera, and if the New Zealand Thrushes (Turnagra) really belong here, which 

 some doubt, it is practically cosmopolitan, though most abundant in the warmer 

 parts of the Old World. They are medium-sized or small birds, generally with 

 a relatively long, distinctly notched bill, which is more or less thickly beset with 



