NEST-HUNTING. 95 



thrasher- fashion in Ohio (in which locality the 

 birds display the best taste I will not say) ; for 

 during the spring of i8go I found but two nests 

 on the ground, and was surprised to find even them, 

 while at least fifteen were discovered in other places. 

 Most of them were on low thorn-bushes, but not all. 

 One was built in a brush-heap, one on a pile of 

 " cord-wood," another on a small stump screened 

 by some bushes, and two on a rail fence. Of the 

 last two, one was partly supported by poison-ivy 

 vines and partly by a rail ; the other was built 

 entirely on a rail in a projecting corner of the 

 fence. 



The thrasher, as has been said, builds an artless 

 platform of sticks that in some cases barely holds 

 together long enough to answer the purpose for 

 which it was intended. In this respect its habits 

 differ from those of the wood-thrush, a bird that 

 is very abundant and musical in my neighborhood. 

 I have found many of the wood-thrush's nests, 

 which are built in the crotches of small saplings in 

 the thickest part of the woods, and are made almost 

 as substantial as the adobe dwellings of the robin. 

 The thrush does not use as much mortar as his red- 

 breasted relative ; otherwise there is a close resem- 

 blance between the nests of the two birds. 



It was amusing to find pieces of newspaper 

 bedizening the houses of the wood-thrushes so 

 frequently, though it cannot be said that they 

 showed the highest literary taste in their selec- 

 tions ; for one or two of the fragments contained 



