16 THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 



The Brown Thrasher 



I first heard the Thrasher described as a brown bird with a long floppy 

 tail. This description is not far from accurate, though given by a boy 

 who had never studied birds. It is an interesting fact that this bird, only 

 eleven and a half inches long, should have a tail over five inches in 

 length. 



My attention was first called to a Brown Thrasher one evening when 

 I heard the sweet, exhilarating and peculiarly rich notes of one in the 

 top of a tall oak tree in my back yard. The next day I noticed the birds 

 carrying small twigs to some place in the back part of the yard. So I 

 determined to find this Thrasher's nest if it were possible. I hunted all 

 morning but was unable to find it, so clever were the two Thrashers in 

 concealing their approach to the newly constructed nest. The day after 

 I attempted again to find the nest but with no better results. That after- 

 noon, a friend used to the habits of Thrashers and hiding places in which 

 they conceal their nests, discovered their nest very cleverly and successfully 

 camouflaged in a large pile of thorn apple branches that had been trimmed 

 from the trees the fall before. 



The nest was built in the center of the pile of branches about two feet 

 above the ground. The outer part was made of coarse twigs, loosely laid 

 together. Inside this was the nest proper, lined with the greatest care, 

 with fine grasses and rootlets. Contrary to the habits of other related 

 birds like the Cat-bird no foreign substances such as paper, string or 

 cloth were woven into it. 



The following day there was one long white egg, specked with fine 

 chocolate colored spots, in this daintly lined nest. On the fifth day there 

 were five eggs and the female then began her brooding, to the accompani- 

 ment of her mate's never ending, seemingly spontaneous song. 



Thrashers are reported to be very shy, but the female Thrasher would 

 stay on the nest even when I approached to within three or four feet of 

 her. I tried several experiments with interesting results, the first one 

 to see how close I could get to the nest without her leaving it. I did this 

 by daily walking around the nest for about fifteen minutes, approaching 

 nearer and nearer each time. At first she was startled and tried to hide as 

 much as possible by flattening herself down in the nest. But by the third 

 day she seemed quite used to me and did not even follow me with her eyes 

 as she did when I first appeared. 



One afternoon I sat down about five feet from the nest and began to 

 whistle a waltz tune while I watched the female on the nest. The minute 

 I began to whistle she cocked her head on one side to see where it was 

 coming from. Then to my amazement, she began to tap her bill on a 

 twig in front of her in perfect time to the music. 



About two weeks later I went to the nest and found that all the eggs 

 had hatched and that the little birds were knotted up in a compact mass in 

 the bottom of the nest. They were perfectly naked, flesh colored, with 

 abnormally large heads. I imitated v the female's low whistle and all five 

 heads consisting principally of mouths popped up. I withdrew to a little 

 distance and watched the mother bird feed the babies. She would feed 

 two of them one time and three the next and the male would do the op- 



