42 
THE BROWN THRUSHES : 
CHAPTER lY. 
The time for the trial at length arrived. The 
Robins had retained for their counsel Mary- 
land Yellow Throat, a shrewd, quick-witted 
fellow, while the Thrushes depended upon a 
cousin of theirs, by the name of Wilson’s 
Thrush, a quiet, unostentatious, but thor- 
oughly informed bird, and capable of conduct- 
ing almost any case that might arise in the 
courts in which he was permitted to practise. 
The place appointed for the sitting was near 
the residence of Red Owl, in a grove of white 
oaks, whose wide-spreading branches and thick 
foliage threw the scene into that semi-obscurity 
that is so necessary to maintain the dignity 
and importance of the tribunal on whose judg- 
ment so much of happiness and sorrow de- 
pends. 
The jury, consisting of twelve of the neigh- 
boring birds, being duly empanelled, the judge 
announced that the court was prepared to hear 
