The Brown Thrasher 
41 
busy to be bothered by visitors. Most birds 
are content to make one nest a year but not 
these, who, in their excess of wren energy, keep 
on building nest after nest in the vicinity of the 
one preferred for their chocolate brown eggs. 
Bending down the tips of the rushes they some- 
how manage to weave them, with the weeds and 
grasses they bring, into a bulky ball suspended 
between the rushes and firmly attached to 
them. In one side of this green grassy globe 
they leave an entrance through which to carry 
the finer grasses for the lining and the down from 
last season’s bursted cat-tails. When a nest 
is finished, its entrance is often cleverly con- 
cealed. If there are several feet of water below 
the high and dry cradle, so much the better, 
think the wrens — fewer enemies can get at 
them ; but they do sometimes build in meadows 
that are merely damp. In such meadows the 
short-billed marsh wren, a slightly smaller 
sprite, prefers to live. 
THE BROWN THRASHER 
Called also: Brown Thrush; Long Thrush; 
Ground Thrush; Red Thrush; French Mock- 
ing-bird; Mavis. 
People who are not very well acquainted 
with the birds about them usually mistake the 
