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 visits the garden or orchard, its nest, however, being in
dense shrubbery or groves. The thrasher's favorite time for singing is
in early morning, when, perched on the top of a bush or tree, it gives
an exhibition of vocal powers which would do credit to the mockingbird.
Indeed, in the South, where the latter bird is abundant, the thrasher is
known as the sandy mocker.
[14] _Toxostoma rufum_.
[Illustration: Fig. 5.--Brown thrasher. Length, about 11 inches.]
The food of the brown thrasher consists of both fruit and insects. An
examination of 636 stomachs showed 59 per cent of vegetable and 41 per
cent 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.