THRUSHES 
The gentle and lovable wood thrush ordinarily makes its home in dark, 
damp woods, but often this tawny, black-spotted bird emerges to sing its 
calm, rippling song on a well-shaded lawn. The song consists of a liquid 
quirt and a sharp pit-pit. 
The wood thrush is highly migratory, wintering as far south as Mexico 
and the Canal Zone. It makes its nest in young trees or bushes, of leaves, 
twigs and rootlets with an inner wall of mud and a lining of finer rootlets. 
Its eggs, from three to five in number, are greenish-blue, occasionally 
flecked with brown. Wood thrushes live on insects, fruits and berries. 
ROBINS 
The related robins are said to have a highly developed language, capable 
of expressing alarm, suspicion or caution. They can signal companions to 
take wing. These black, red-breasted birds act as seed dispersers. They eat 
the berries of cedar, juniper and wild cherry; the pulp is digested, while 
the seeds pass through the digestive tract. Farmers, long puzzled over the 
fact that long rows of cedar trees often sprang up along a rail fence sepa¬ 
rating two pastures or farms, discovered that the robins perched on the 
fence were the “planters.” 
Robins awake and sing earlier in the morning than any other birds. 
Their song, as they are very sensitive to atmospheric conditions, often 
presages a coming shower. A passing cloud that cuts off the sunlight for a 
moment will often bring forth a burst of melody from these birds. Most 
robins fly south in loosely-shaped flocks in cold weather, large numbers of 
them wintering in Florida, where they live on palmetto and mistletoe 
berries. In March the males arrive first at their northern breeding ground. 
Throughout the summer the males and the young of the first brood often 
roost apart, returning now and then to their nests to see how mother robin 
is doing with the second brood. These roosts frequently contain many hun¬ 
dreds of birds. The nests are similar in construction to those of the thrush. 
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