BROWN THRUSH; BROWN THRASHER. 
HARPORHYNCHUS RUFUS. 
HE song of this largest and most joyous of the 
thrushes exhibits greater variety than that of any 
other member of his most musical family. Despite a 
lack of quality in tone, he is one of the favorites; his 
fame is assured. In exuberance and peculiarity of 
performance he is unsurpassed, unless it be by the cat- 
bird. While prone to the conversational style, he is ca- 
pable of splendid inspiration. Literary folk might term 
him the “Browning” among birds. On a fine morning 
in June, when he rises to the branch of a wayside 
tree, or to the top of a bush at the edge of the pasture, the 
first eccentric accent convinces us that the spirit of song 
has fast hold on him. As the fervor increases his long 
and elegant tail droops; all his feathers separate; his 
whole plumage is lifted, it floats, trembles; his head is 
raised and his bill wide open: there is no mistake, it is 
the power of the god. No pen can report him now; we 
must wait till the frenzy passes. Then we may catch 
such fragments as these: — 
