The brown thrasher[14] (fig. 5) 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. The thrasher’s favorite time for singing is in early morning, when, perched on the top of a tall bush or low tree, it gives an exhibition of vocal powers which would do credit to a mocking bird. 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 636 stomachs showed 36 per cent of vegetable and 64 of animal food, practically all insects, and mostly taken in spring before fruit was ripe. Half the insects were beetles and the remainder chiefly grasshoppers, caterpillars, bugs, and spiders. A few predacious beetles were eaten, but on the whole the work of the species as an insect destroyer may be considered beneficial.

Eight per cent of its 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. Though some of the corn may be taken from newly planted fields, it is amply paid for by the destruction of 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 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 crops of the farmer.