A Wayside Thrasher 



By J. W. LIPPINCOTT. Bethayres. Pa. 



With a photograph by the author 



WHEN a bird flies up on two different occasions from exactly the same 

 spot, and the season is spring, one may expect to find something 

 interesting there; so, when a Brown Thrasher flitted a second time 

 from a roadside briar, I jumped from the motor, just to take a look. 



Sure enough, there was a nest hidden under the trailing briar, and resting 

 directly in the center of what might be termed the gutter, were this not a fine, 

 sandy, country road. There were eggs, four of them, bluish white and finely 

 spotted with brown, particularly at each end. And here a Thrasher dared to 

 build! Right on the ground, almost in the narrow road along which motors 

 thundered day and night. 



And such a nest! Perfectly round, fitted neatly into a hollow where the 

 briar leaves formed a fair sunshade, and made of the finest roots and a few 

 black horsehairs curled around and in and out, to make a firm mass. 



The mother bird had vanished entirely, nor could I see the mate. The 

 banks rose steeply for several feet on each side of the road, merging into wheat 

 fields above. On one side was a rail fence, with several little oaks planted at 

 intervals, and bearing profuse foliage six feet from the ground. It was in one of 

 these that the two birds were hidden while they watched me. Not a sound did 

 they make. 



Later the mate sang his wild, erratic notes from the top of a buttonball a 

 whole field away. At least thirty feet up in the air, on a dead limb that had 

 suffered from lightning years ago, he caroled away for half an hour, or perhaps 

 more, while the Chimney Swifts dodged about him, and far below in the gutter 

 the faithful little mate sat and listened. 



Upon a sunny day, the twenty-sixth of June, when I once more came to see 

 the nest, the mother slipped off with a good deal of reluctance and left only one 

 egg and one little one. Where had the other two eggs gone to? 



The next day, and the next, the same thing happened. The mother slipped 

 off and ran across the road, flitted onto the fence, hopped from there into one 

 of the little oaks, and then commenced making a noise somewhat like a Tom- 

 tit, only much exaggerated. The mate then invariably came from somewhere, 

 and joined in with a trifle harsher note. The other egg had not yet been hatched, 

 and the young one was growing astonishingly. 



I began to wonder, then, if the mother were trying to hatch that lone egg, 

 since she was always found on the nest and, when disturbed, immediately 

 returned, allowing the mate to do all the feeding. I cannot believe that in 

 roasting weather the young one needed her added warmth, since he would not 

 remain under her, but struggled to one side and fairly gasped from heat. 

 Whether the sun shone or not, there she sat, often with biU wide open ; and now 



(246) 



