94 -OT- BIRD LAND. 



birds are adepts at concealment, while others build 

 in places where you would not think of looking. 

 However, I have had but little difificulty in finding 

 the nests of the brown thrasher, which erects an 

 inartistic platform of sticks, bound together by a few 

 grass fibres, and thus is easily descried in the bushes, 

 where it is usually placed. Early in the spring I 

 found the nest of a pair of these birds in a thick 

 clump of bushes near the edge of a woodland, and 

 resolved to keep watch over it until the young 

 family had left their home. The parent birds in 

 this case were very solicitous for the safety of their 

 young. Every time I called they set up a pitiful 

 to-do, which invariably made me hurry away, after 

 a timid peep into the cradle. There is as much 

 difference in the temperaments of birds of the same 

 species as there is among persons belonging to the 

 same family. While the thrashers in question 

 seemed to be terrified at my presence, others 

 driven from their nests displayed little or no fear, 

 but sat quietly on a perch near by and allowed me 

 to examine their domicile without so much as a 

 chirp. 



The brown thrasher has surprised me by the 

 variety of places he selects for building his log 

 house. Wilson Flagg in his book, " A Year with 

 the Birds," says that this bird usually builds on the 

 ground ; and Mr. Eldridge E. Fish, who writes 

 pleasantly about the birds of western New York, 

 bears similar testimony. Perhaps thrasher-fashion 

 in New England and New York differs from 



