48 BIRDS 



arrow-shaped spots. Tail very long. Bill long and 



curved at tip. 

 Female — ^Paler than male. 

 Range — ^United States to Rockies. Nests from Gulf 



states to Manitoba and Montreal. Winters south of 



Virginia. 

 Migrations — ^Late April. October. Common summer 



resident. 



(See plate, page 35.) 



People who are not very well acquainted with the birds 

 about them usually mistake the long-tailed brown thrasher 

 for a thrush because he has a rusty back and a speckled 

 white breast, which they seem to think is exclusively a thrush 

 characteristic, which it certainly is not. The oven-bird 

 and several members of the sparrow tribe, among other 

 birds, have speckled and streaked breasts, too. The brown 

 thrasher is considerably longer than a thrush and his habits 

 are quite different. Watch him nervously twitch his long 

 tail, or work it up and down like one end of a see-saw, or 

 swing it like a pendulum, or suddenly jerk it up erect while 

 he sits at attention in the thicket, then droop it when, after 

 mounting to a conspicuous perch, he lifts his head to sing, 

 and you will probably "guess right the very first time" 

 that he is a near relative of the wrens, not a thrush at all. 

 As a little sailor-boy once said, "He carries his tell-tail 

 on the stern." 



Like his cousin, the catbird, the brown thrasher likes to 

 live in bushy thickets overgrown with vines. Here, run- 

 ning over the ground among the fallen leaves, he picks up 

 with his long slender bill, worms. May beetles, and scores of 

 other kinds of insects that, but for him, would soon find 



