their migrations, they are not readily 

 seen, for they skulk along through the 

 tangled underbrush and the shrubbery 

 and herbage of fence-rows. Brown 

 Thrashers are always suspicious and 

 quickly resent the near approach of an 

 intruder, uttering a sharp unpleasant 

 note or whistle. 



While the Thrashers have a quiet and 

 retiring disposition, they are fearless in 

 the defense of their homes or young, fly- 

 ing at an intruder in a most revengeful 

 manner, and uttering their unpleasant 

 scolding notes. The mother bird is a 

 close sitter and will almost permit her- 

 self to be caught before leaving the nest. 

 The nests of the Brown Thrashers are 

 usually placed in bushes, vine tangles, 

 brush heaps, or upon the ground, though 

 they may be built, at times, in angles of 

 rail fences which are protected by shrubs, 

 herbage or brush piles. The nests are 

 quite bulky and constructed with rather 

 loosely placed twigs, tendrils, rootlets 

 and leaves, and they are variously lined 

 with fine rootlets, horse hairs and feath- 

 ers. The species of thorn apples, 

 CratcEgus, and osage-orange hedges are 

 favorite nesting sites of the Thrashers. 

 They seem to feel better protected in the 

 tangled and thorny branches of these 

 growths. They are certainly safer in 

 these retreats from the attacks of birds 

 of prey. The Thrashers, as well as many 

 other birds, seek the thorny trees and 

 shrubs for roosting at night where they 

 are well protected from that quiet noc- 

 turnal foe, the owl. 



The food of the Brown Thrashers con- 

 sists of insects, fruits and seeds. They 

 have been accused of destroying large 

 quantities of cultivated fruits. Mr. Sil- 

 loway says: 'T have seen as many as 

 four birds at one time feeding in one 

 small pear tree in the heart of a village 

 of two thousand inhabitants. Their 

 manner of eating pears is to peck large 

 mouthfuls from each pear within reach. 

 Thus many pears are spoiled for use 

 though not entirely eaten." When in an 

 orchard, the Brown Thrasher moves in 

 the same skulking manner that he does 

 when traversing the fence rows and 

 brush heaps, and not in the open and 

 bold style of the robin. Professor S. A. 



Forbes says that, "it relishes the whole 

 list of garden fruits, and later in the sea- 

 son resorts, like the thrushes, to the wild 

 fruits of the woods and thickets." How- 

 ever, Professor Forbes, as well as other 

 careful investigators of the economic 

 value of birds, places the Thrasher on a 

 high plane of usefulness. Dr. Sylvester 

 D. Judd examined the contents of the 

 stomach of one hundred and twenty-one 

 Thrashers collected from Maine to Flor- 

 ida and westward to Kansas. The fol- 

 lowing percentages show the proportions 

 of the different kinds of food taken by 

 the birds: Animal matter, sixty-three; 

 vegetable, thirty-five; mineral, two. 

 Beetles formed fully one-half of the ani- 

 mal matter and grasshoppers, crickets 

 and caterpillars about two-fifths. He 

 also found that "the percentage of food 

 taken from cultivated crops by the 

 Thrashers amounts to eleven, and of 

 this eight per cent is fruit and the rest 

 grain." Dr. Judd also says: "The 

 farmer is more than compensated for 

 this loss by the destruction of an 

 equal bulk of May beetles, which, if 

 allowed to live, would have done much 

 more harm than the Thrashers, and left 

 a multitudinous progeny for next year." 

 Dr. Judd summarizes his investigations 

 of the economic relations of the Brown 

 Thrasher to agriculture in the following 

 words : "Two-thirds of the bird's food 

 is animal; the vegetable food is mostly 

 fruit, but the quantity taken from culti- 

 vated crops is offset by three times that 

 volume of insect food." 



We may then admire this elegant bird 

 and its magnificent song feeling assured 

 that it is also useful in a more practical 

 way near our fields and homes. But, in 

 the words of Mr. Burroughs, "Why is 

 the Thrasher so stealthy? It always 

 seems to be going about on tiptoe. I 

 never knew it to steal anything, and yet 

 it skulks and. hides like a fuQ:itive from 

 justice. One never sees it flying aloft in 

 the air and traversing the world openly, 

 like most birds, but it darts along fences 

 and through bushes as if pursued by a 

 guilty conscience. Only when the 

 musical fit is upon it does it come up 

 into full view, and invite the world to 

 hear and behold." 



