12 
FARMERS* BULLETIN *755. 
1.54 per cent and are very regularly distributed. One bird taken in Illinois had eaten 
chinch bugs, but none were found in stomachs from farther south. Flies (1.76 per 
cent) are evidently not a favorite food of the thrasher, and nearly all of those eaten 
were taken in November. One stomach secured that month in a Mississippi cotton 
field was filled with flies except 6 per cent of fruit of “French mulberries”; the bird 
had probably found a colony of flies hibernating in a crevice and had devoured the 
whole lot. 
Caterpillars (5.95 per cent) stand next to beetles in the thrasher’s food, and are 
taken every month except November; that month, however, is represented by only 
five stomachs. Grasshoppers and crickets would seem to be very available to the 
thrasher, as the insects live on the ground, where also the birds get their food; but, 
unlike the meadowlark, these birds do not esteem grasshopper diet enough to go out 
in the sunshine to seek it. This food (2.43 per cent for the year) is taken to some 
extent every month, the maximum (8.5 per cent) in September. 
A few insects of other groups are picked up occasionally. In all they amount to 
only one-fourth of 1 per cent. Spiders (0.58 per cent) are eaten now and then, and 
myriapods (thousand-legs) to a somewhat greater extent (2.24 per cent), but very 
irregularly, the maximum (8 per cent) in January. A few miscellaneous animals, 
like crawfish, sowbugs, snails, and angle worms, make up 1.26 per cent. Bones of 
lizards, salamanders, and tree frogs (in all, 0.92 per cent) were found in 11 stomachs. 
Of the insects eaten by the brown thrasher there is only one class to which excep¬ 
tion can be taken—the predacious beetles. That these insects render some service 
to man is beyond reasonable doubt, though some of them also do injury. Their de¬ 
struction, then, is not an unmixed harm, but in any case the more numerous noxious 
insects eaten by the thrasher more than compensate for the useful beetles incidentally 
destroyed. 
The vegetable food of this bird is nearly equally divided between fruit and a number 
of other substances, of which mast is the most prominent. Wild fruit, the largest item 
in the vegetable portion (19.94 per cent), was eaten every month in varying quanti¬ 
ties, the month of maximum consumption (45.69 per cent) being September; January 
and February, with dried-up fruit from the last summer’s crop, stand next. Alto¬ 
gether about 30 species of wild fruits or berries were identified in the stomachs. Those 
most eaten are blueberries, huckleberries, holly berries, elderberries, pokeberries, 
hackberries, Virginia creeper, and sour gum. Some seeds not properly classified as 
“fruit” were found, as bayberry, sumac—including some of the poisonous species—- 
pine, and sweet gum. 
Domestic fruit, or what was called such, was found in nine months, from April to 
the end of the year, most of it (53.19 per cent) in July. Raspberries or blackberries, 
currants, grapes, cherries, and strawberries were positively identified by their seeds, 
but as all of these grow wild, it is probable that much that is conventionally termed 
domestic fruit is really from uncultivated plants. The aggregate for the year is 12.42 
per cent. Most unexpected in the thrasher’s diet was mast, principally acorns, 
although some of it was so finely ground up that it was not possible to tell its exact 
nature. It is also somewhat a matter of doubt as to just where to draw a dividing 
line between mast and seeds, so that the proportion of each is somewhat uncertain. In 
the case in hand the total for the year is estimated at 23.72 per cent. Mast was eaten 
every month except August, but mostly in fall and winter—November, the month 
when acorns are abundant and fresh, showing the greatest quantity (57.4 per cent). 
Grain (2.57 per cent) was found in the stomachs for six months, but in only February, 
March, and May were there noteworthy percentages. March shows 12.37 per cent, 
the other two slightly less. The grain was nearly all corn, with a little wheat, but from 
the season in which it was taken most of it evidently was waste. 
The farmer has nothing to fear from depredations on fruit or grain by the brown 
thrasher. The bird is a resident of groves and swamps rather than of orchards and 
