BROWN THRASHER. 
Harporhynchus rufus Cas. 
PLate V. Fis. +. 
Oh, hark to the Brown Thrush! hear how he sings! 
. Now he pours the dear pain of his gladness! 
What a gush! and from out what golden springs! 
What a rage of how sweet madness! 
D. A. WASSON. 
T IS a beautiful June morning. Bathed in the brilliant sunlight, the prairie of northern 
Illinois lies stretched out before us. Its grassy monotony is broken only by strips 
of woodland, aggregated in the distance. Sometimes one must walk miles to reach one 
of these strips of forest, but who feels himself deterred by distance on such a morning 
and in such a place? Even here, in the grassy, meadowy plain, bird-life reigns supreme. 
Dozens of Bobolinks hover over the waves of grass uttering their tinkling notes; 
Meadow Larks merrily trill their matin songs; the Savanna Sparrow rocks itself on the 
lithe tall herbs while it smooths its plumage, and Black-throated Buntings, or ‘'Dick- 
sissels,’”? making up in eagerness tor all the dissonance of their voices, unceasingly emit 
their acute twitter. The green grass is gemmed with flowers. The Canada lily! and the 
turk’s cap’, although not yet in full flower, tower above their surroundings. In a few 
weeks the whole prairie will present an enchanting appearance, when these noble flowers 
shall burst into flaming bloom. 
At last we have reached the margin of the woods. A Maryland Yellow-throat, 
perched in the undergrowth, bids us welcome. In the hazel thickets, in the blackberry, 
viburnums, and dogwood bushes, bordering the woods, hides many a Yellow Warbler 
and Indigo Bird. The Baltimore Oriole, glowing like a flame amid the foliage of some 
isolated elm, pours forth its song, while the wind sways its pendent nest built with 
exquisite art high aloft in the flexible twigs. A few steps further and we have reached 
the nesting place of our Brown THRASHER, or BRown TuHRUuUSH, and many another 
forest-loving species. The margin-underwood is usually followed by dense shrubbery 
consisting of sweet-scented crab-trees* and white-thorn‘’, overgrown with wild grape 
vines and virgin’s bower®. Here and there isolated oaks, elms, black walnut, hickory, 
and ash-trees shoot upwards, their numbers and density increasing as we move on into 
the forest. As these woodlands almost always follow the banks of rivers and creeks, 
their dense undergrowth becomes a place of congregation for many different birds. They 
are the favorite haunts of the Wood Thrush, the Catbird, the beautiful Rose-breasted 
Grosbeak, the Chewink, many Vireos, of the Wood Pewee, the Redstart, ete. The Brown 
Thrush is one of the most abundant of the denizens of these thickets without, however, 
confining itself to these alone, for it is also found in bushy pastures, in the dense shrub- 
bery along rail-fences, and in greater abundance in the dense osage-orange hedges. 
Lilium canadense, 2 L, superbum, 3 Pyrus coronarius, 41 Crataegus. 5 Clematis virginica. 
