BROWN THRASHER. 61 
The Brown Thrush is certainly one of our very best songsters, and rivals the Wood 
Thrush, the Veery, the Hermit, the Catbird, and the Mockingbird. I regard the 
Thrasher as the finest of our American songsters. It would take the palm even from 
the Hermit and the Mockingbird, if only its period of singing were longer. It is, un- 
fortunately, a prominent singer for a few weeks only; later in the season, its voice is 
rarely heard. When the Catbird begins to sing, the Brown Thrush has approached the 
end of its season of song. During this brief season, however, it’ sings very diligently. 
It usually pours forth its notes from some exposed spot, as from the top of a small 
tree or a telegraph post. It bears itself nobly, and its eyes speak intelligence and self- 
consciousness. If disturbed while singing, it suddenly dives almost to the ground, dis- 
appearing in the neighboring bushes, or it flies along the edge of a thicket or hedge, 
just above the surface of the ground, till it reaches another suitable perch where it again 
begins its song. Usually the males of a district vie with one another from their lofty 
perches. Besides the song, one often hears a melodious call-note like “Yeu” or “Tshee- 
uh", and also a sharp smacking or hissing ‘‘Tshat’’, especially when the nest is ap- 
proached. 
About the middle of May, in the Northern States the male and female will often 
be seen flying about bushes and hedges. They follow each other closely as they skim 
over the ground. The reddish-brown color of the upper parts, the long reddish-brown 
tail, and the somewhat heavy flight, make them easily recognized. In the osage-orange 
hedges with which the prairie farmers of Illinois surround their fields, and which often 
extend for miles along the country roads, I have frequently found as many as five, and 
even six, nests in a mile’s walk. In these close and very thorny hedges, the nests are 
built at a height of from three to five feet from the ground, and so carefully are they 
concealed in the dense foliage that they cannot be seen without bending the branches 
aside. Here they are well protected, for it is difficult to reach them without scratching 
one’s hands. Cats, raccoons, squirrels, and other small mammals, are likewise unable 
to reach the structure in such a situation. In southwestern Missouri and in Wisconsin, 
the nests are most abundant in bushy forest margins and in pastures dotted here and 
there with thickets. In these places, too, the Thrasher builds its nest in the interior of 
some white-thorn bush, in a sweet-scented crab-tree, or in a thicket overgrown with 
wild grape-vines. In these latter places I found the nest from eight to ten, and even 
fifteen, feet from the ground. In Missouri, I occasionally discovered the nest even on 
the ground in brush-heaps or under low bushes. One nest was found only a few steps 
back of the school at Freistatt, near a foot-path along which more than fifty children 
passed and repassed daily. This nest, contrary to the usual habit of the bird, was 
built in a hollow of the ground, among some brush. The sitting female was so tame 
that it remained on the nest when one watched it or passed by. Although occurring 
sometimes in the shrubbery of gardens, Thrashers are rather shy and distrustful, avoid- 
ing the near neighborhood of man as much as possible. I have found the greatest 
number of nests in the prairie woods of Illinois alluded to in the opening sentences of 
this description. As soon as the pair have found a suitably secluded spot in some 
thicket or vine-covered crab-tree, they begin to gather materials for the foundation of 
their nest. They first colleét small branches, thorny twigs, grasses, plant-stems, etc., 
