JUNE DAYS. 57 
water that collects in the shallow depression upon the 
flagstone. In the pasture beyond, he waits for the boy 
who comes whistling after the cows, and follows him 
home by the blackberry road that lies along the zigzag 
fence, challenging the carelessly thrown stone he has 
learned to dodge with ease. He joins the berrying 
parties fresh from school, soliciting a game of hide-and- 
seek, and laughs at the mishaps that never fail when 
children try the brier patch.” But it is in the mating 
season that he is heard at his best. ‘‘The next we see 
of the bird, he is perched on the topmost spray of yon- 
der pear tree, with quivering wings, brimful of song. 
He is inspired; for a time at least he is lifted above 
the commonplace; his kinship with the prince of song, 
with the mockingbird himself, is vindicated. He has 
discovered the source of the poetry of everyday life.” 
A bird almost as familiar as any of these is the red 
thrush, as some writers prefer to call him, or the brown 
thrasher (Harporhynchus rufus, Cab.), a name and a 
bird both endeared to me by long and intimate ac- 
quaintance. ‘There goes a brown thrasher!” used to 
be acry that would set a troop of boys gazing after one 
of their pet birds. Unconsciously, as boys do learn so 
many things, they had learned to distinguish his fine 
song in the open pasture or on the edge of the wood- 
land, and to respect the nest with its treasure of four or 
five eggs or young ones. As the old Greek poet 
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