The Sage Thrasher 
Taken in Idaho 
He cannot wait to analyze. He must dance and shout for joy. The 
wine of the wilderness is henceforth in his veins, and drunk with ecstasy, 
he reels across the enchanted scene forever more. 
And all this inspiration the bird draws from common sage and the 
rising of the common 
sun. How does he do 
it? I do not know. 
Ask Homer, Milton, 
Keats. 
The Sage Thrasher 
appears to live life in 
its ultimate simplicity, 
for there is no other 
bird bred amidst more 
uniform surroundings; 
and yet if we could 
know, I suppose life 
would seem to be made 
up of pleasant variety 
enough — a thousand 
sorts of bugs to choose 
for food, a thousand 
fair ladies from whom 
to win a mate, and twice 
ten thousand times ten 
thousand sage-bushes, 
any one of which is fit to 
support that modest cra¬ 
dle which shall house his 
children. What d’ye 
lack, my masters? 
Recollections of 
the Southland have 
prompted Taylor to 
say in his Nevada re¬ 
port : 1 “To a consider¬ 
able extent the birds 
resemble the true 
Mockingbird (Mimus 
polyglottos Ieucopterus ) 
nest and eggs of sage thrasher ' as regards habits of 
Photo by Rust 
1 Field Notes on Amphibians. Reptiles and Birds of Northern Humboldt County, Nevada, by Walter P. Taylor 
U. of C. Pub. in Zool., Vol. 7, No. 10, 1912, pp. 413-416. 
730 
