“Also called _Brown Thrush_, _Red Mavis_, _Planting Bird_. Brown of
back, with his white throat and belly speckled with black arrow marks, a
long, curved bill, and long, restless tail, whose thrashing gives the
bird his name, this bird combines the markings of the Thrush with the
general build of a true Mockingbird, while in varied and rich song it
rivals the Catbird, its shorter song season, however, leaving its
gray-backed neighbour in the lead.
“This spring Brown Thrasher came to the bushy end of the orchard the
last of April, and scratched about in the leaves like a Grouse. In a few
days I saw him in the back of the garden, where Jacob had a great pile
of pea-brush. This the bird looked at favourably. Birds know how to get
in and out of pea-brush, but cats are afraid of the sharp twigs.
“For a couple of weeks or more I heard him singing every day in the
tree-tops, and I wondered where he would locate.
“Jacob, one morning, told me that he wished to use the pea-brush, but
that a ‘pair of great brown birds that beat their tails and “sassed” him
when he came near’ had built a nest of twigs in the back of the heap.
‘My friends, the Thrashers,’ said I, ‘will need that brush for a couple
of months. Have you no more in the lot?’ Jacob had plenty with only the
trouble of carting.
“Now hardy vines have grown over the brush and tangled into what
Goldilocks calls a lovely ‘Thrashery’ that will last for several years.”
“I know them,” said Jack Todd; “they are mockers and jeerers for
certain; when Dad and I plant the big south field with corn every
spring, they come in the berry-bushes by the fence and tell us how to do
it, and that if we’re smart and take their advice, we won’t cut the
fence brush until they are done with nesting.
“But can’t they pick cherries to beat the band? Last summer I was up in
the ox-heart tree and they came in the top and picked ’em off, just as
they grew in pairs, and flew away with them as pleased and satisfied as
if they were picking them for market and were a week ahead of the
season. Dad was awfully down on them once, but one morning about two
years ago he got up at daylight to try and get the cutworms that were
spoiling his early cauliflowers, and there were Thrashers and Catbirds
doing the work for him, watching out for the worms to move ground just
as clever as a man could.
“As for the _Catbird_ or _New England Mockingbird_, trim of shape, and
shrewd of eye, what should we do without him? He is a graphophone in
feathers, that gives us selections from all the popular bird songs of
the day, with this addition—there is no mechanical twang to mar the
melody, and when the repertoire is ended he improvises by the hour.
“Ah, the merry, mischievous Mocker, all dressed in a parson’s suit of
gray, with a solemn black cap on his head that is as full of tricks as
his throat is of music.
“You say, ‘Yes, I know that he is a jolly musician, but my father says
that he bites the best strawberries and cherries, and always on the
ripest cheek!’
“Well, so he does _sometimes_; but his ancestors lived on that spot
where your garden stands before yours did, and you have more ways of
earning a living than he has. Give him something else to eat. Plant a
little wild fruit along your fences.
“Some people think that he likes to live in seclusion, but he doesn’t;
he likes to be near people and perch on a clothes-pole to plume and
sing. Yes, indeed, and he shall nest in the syringa nearest my garden,
where he gets his fresh fruit for breakfast, and be the only thing with
anything catlike about it on my premises!”