18 EVERYDAY BIRDS 



should feel sorry for the boy who could hear it 

 without pity. 



Besides this mournful whistle, the thrasher 

 has a note almost exactly like a smacking kiss, 

 — very realistic, — and sometimes, especially at 

 dusk, an uncanny, ghostly whisper, that seems 

 meant expressly to suggest the presence of some- 

 thing unearthly and awful. So far as I am 

 aware, there is no other bird-note like it. I have 

 no doubt that many a superstitious person has 

 taken to his heels on hearing it from the bushes 

 along a lonesome roadside after nightfall. 



Except in the spring, indeed, there is little 

 about the thrasher's appearance or behavior to 

 suggest pleasant thoughts. To me, at any rate, 

 he seems a creature of chronic low spirits. The 

 world has used him badly, and he cannot get 

 over it. He is almost the only bird I ever see 

 without a little inspiration of cheerfulness. Per- 

 haps I misjudge him. 



Let my young readers make his acquaintance 

 on their own account, if they have not already 

 done so, and find him a livelier creature than I 

 have described him, if they can. 



