WOODLAND SINGERS. 159 



brown thrush or thrasher {Harporhyncus rufus). 

 He is nearly if not quite twelve inches long (some- 

 times longer), is light reddish brown above and dull 

 white beneath, and his breast is streaky spotted with 

 brown ; on the wings beneath the shoulders are two 

 white bars. The bird is a splendid singer, although 

 his wild and irregular notes are by no means as sil- 

 very and sweet as those of his thrush cousins. He 

 appears early in the spring, and there are those who 

 interpret his snatchy bits of song as advice to the 

 farmer to " plow it " or " hoe it." But it must not 

 be supposed that his song is always so fragmentary. 

 I listened not long since to a brown thrush, and he 

 continued his song without intermission for ten sec- 

 onds — a good long time for a bird to sing. The 

 quality of his note is not unlike that of the robin, 

 but he does not warble like the robin, nor does he 

 whistle with flutelike clearness like the wood thrush ; 

 his music is his own, and is quite as spasmodic and 

 unconventional as it could well be. 



The brown thrush frequents the thickets and 

 copses not far from the road, and in these the rude 

 nests are built at no great distance from the ground. 

 There are usually five bluish eggs spotted plentifully 

 with brown. I have found the brown thrush to be 

 a frequent visitor of the highways which pass through 

 the southern valleys of the White Mountains. 



