(Harporhynchus rufus.)

The brown thrasher (fig. 19) breeds throughout the United States east of the Great Plains, and winters in the south Atlantic and Gulf States. It occasionally visits the garden or orchard, but nests in swamps or in groves standing upon low ground. While it generally prefers a thickly grown retreat, it sometimes builds in a pile of brush at a distance from trees. On account of its more retiring habits it is not so conspicuous as the robin, although it may be equally abundant. Few birds can excel the thrasher in sweetness of song, but it is so shy that its notes are not heard often enough to be appreciated. Its favorite time for singing is the early morning, when, perched on the top of some tall bush or low tree, it gives an exhibition of vocal powers which would do credit to a mockingbird. Indeed, in the South, where the latter bird is abundant, the thrasher is known as the sandy mocker.

The food of the brown thrasher consists of both fruit and insects. An examination of 121 stomachs showed 30 per cent of vegetable and 64 of animal food, practically all insects, and mostly taken in spring before fruit is ripe. Half the insects were beetles, and the remainder chiefly grasshoppers, caterpillars, bugs, and spiders. A few predaceous beetles were eaten, but, on the whole, its work as an insect destroyer may be considered beneficial.

Eight per cent of the food is made up of fruits like raspberries and currants which are or may be cultivated, but the raspberries at least are as likely to belong to wild as to cultivated varieties. Grain, made up mostly of scattered kernels of oats and corn, is merely a trifle, amounting to only 3 per cent, and though some of the corn may be taken from newly planted fields it is amply paid for by the May beetles which are eaten at the same time. The rest of the food consists of wild fruit or seeds. Taken all in all, the brown thrasher is a useful bird, and probably does just as good work in its secluded retreats as it would about the garden, for the swamps and groves are no doubt the breeding grounds of many insects that migrate thence to attack the farmers' crops.