Audubon's Birds/BIRDSVER1_3.BIN/dp/0082/00829.txt

Text File | 1992-08-27 | 14KB | 222 lines

$Unique_ID{BRD00829}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Ferruginous Mocking-bird}
$Subject{Turdinae; Orpheus; Toxostoma; rufus; rufum; Ferruginous Mocking-bird;
Brown Thrasher}
$Journal{Birds of America:  Volume III}
$Volume{Vol. 3:9-13}
$Family{Turdinae}
$Genus{Orpheus; Toxostoma}
$Species{rufus; rufum}
$Common_Name{Ferruginous Mocking-bird; Brown Thrasher}
$Log{
Plate CXLI*00250p1.scf,50480023.aud
Bird Call*50480023.aud
Family*00230.txt
Genus*00233.txt
}

            (C) (P) Library of Natural Sounds; Cornell Laboratory
       of Ornithology 1990-91, 1992; Ithaca, N.Y., All rights reserved.
       Portions copyright (c) Creative Multimedia Corp., 1990-91, 1992

                       B I R D S   O F   A M E R I C A .

                    By John James Audubon, F. R. SS. L. & E.

                   ------------------------------------------
                                   VOL.  III.
                        --------------------------------


                           FERRUGINOUS MOCKING-BIRD.
                   [Brown Thrasher.  State Bird of Georgia.]


                              ORPHEUS RUFUS, Linn.
                               [Toxostoma rufum.]


                      PLATE CXLI.--MALE, FEMALE, AND NEST.


     READER, look attentively at the plate before you, and say if such a scene
as that which I have attempted to portray, is not calculated to excite the
compassion of any one who is an admirer of woodland melody, or who sympathizes
with the courageous spirit which the male bird shews, as he defends his nest,
and exerts all his powers to extricate his beloved mate from the coils of the
vile snake which has already nearly deprived her of life.  Another male of the
same species, answering the call of despair from his "fellow creature," comes
swiftly downwards to rescue the sufferers.  With open bill he is already
prepared to strike a vengeful blow at the reptile, his bright eye glancing
hatred at his foe.  See a third grappling with the snake, and with all its might
tearing the skin from its body!  Should this alliance of noble spirits prove
victorious, will it not remind you that innocence, although beset with
difficulties, may, with the aid of friendship, extricate herself with honour?
     The birds in the case represented were greatly the sufferers:  their nest
was upset, their eggs lost, and the life of the female in imminent danger.  But
the snake was finally conquered, and a jubilee held over its carcass by a crowd
of Thrushes and other birds, until the woods resounded with their notes of
exultation.  I was happy in contributing my share to the general jor, for, on
taking the almost expiring bird into my hand for a few minutes, she recovered in
some degree, and I restored her to her anxious mate.
     The Brown Thrush, or Thrasher, by which names this bird is generally known,
may be said to be a constant resident in the United States, as immense numbers
are found all the year round in Louisiana, the Floridas, Georgia, and the
Carolinas.  Indeed some spend the winter in Virginia and Maryland.  During
spring and summer they are met with in all our Eastern States.  They also enter
the British provinces, and are sometimes seen in Nova Scotia; but I observed
none farther north.  It is the most numerous species found in the Union,
excepting the Robin or Migratory Thrush.  Those which breed in the Middle and
Eastern Districts return to the south about the beginning of October, having
been absent fully six months from that genial region, where more than half of
the whole number remain at all seasons.  They migrate by day, and singly, never
congregating, notwithstanding their abundance.  They fly low, or skip from one
bush to another, their longest flight seldom exceeding the breadth of a field or
river.  They seem to move rather heavily, on account of the shortness of their
wings, the concavity of which usually produces a rustling sound, and they travel
very silently.
     No sooner has the bird reached its destined abode, than whenever a fair
morning occurs, it mounts the topmost twig of a detached tree, and pours forth
its loud, richly varied, and highly melodious song.  It scarcely possesses the
faculty of imitation, but is a steady performer; and, although it sings for
hours at a time, seldom, if ever, commits errors while repeating the beautiful
lessons set to it by Nature, all of which it studies for months during spring
and summer.  Ah!  reader, that I could repeat to you its several cadences, all
so full of sweetness and melody, that one might imagine each last trill, as it
dies on the ear, the careful lullaby of some blessed mother chanting her babe to
repose;--that I could imitate its loudest notes, surpassed only by those of that
unrivalled vocalist, the Mocking-bird!  But, alas!  it is impossible for me to
convey to you the charms of the full song of the Brown Thrush; you must go to
its own woods and there listen to it.  In the southern districts, it now and
then enlivens the calm of autumnal days by its song, but it is generally silent
after the breeding season.
     The actions of this species during the period of courtship are very
curious, the male often strutting before the female with his tail trailing on
the ground, moving gracefully round her, in the manner of some pigeons, and
while perched and singing in her presence, vibrating his body with vehemence.
In Louisiana, the Brown Thrush builds its nest as early as the beginning of
March; in the Middle Districts rarely before the middle of May; while in Maine,
it seldom has it finished before June.  It is placed without much care in a
briar bush, a sumach, or the thickest parts of a low tree, never in the interior
of the forest, but most commonly in the bramble patches which are every where to
be met with along the fences or the abandoned old fields.  Sometimes it is laid
flat on the ground.  Although the bird is abundant in the barrens of Kentucky,
in which and in similar places it seems to delight, it has seldom been known to
breed there.  In the Southern States the nest is frequently found close to the
house of the planter, along with that of the Mocking-bird.  To the eastward,
where the denseness of the population renders the bird more shy, the nest is
placed with more care.  But wherever it is situated, you find it large, composed
externally of dry twigs, briars, or other small sticks, imbedded in and mixed
with dried leaves, coarse grass, and other such materials, thickly lined with
fibrous roots, horse hair, and sometimes rags and feathers.  The eggs are from
four to six, of a pale dull buff colour, thickly sprinkled with dots of brown.
Two broods are usually raised in the Southern States, but rarely more than one
in the Middle and Northern Districts.
     They breed well in aviaries, and are quite tractable in a closer state of
confinement.  The young are raised in the same manner, and with the same food,
as those of the Mocking-bird.  In cages it sings well, and has much of the
movements of the latter bird, being full of activity, petulant, and occasionally
apt to peck in resentment at the hand which happens to approach it.  The young
begin their musical studies in autumn, repeating passages with as much zeal as
ever did Paganini.  By the following spring their full powers of song are
developed.
     My friend BACHMAN, who has raised many of these birds, has favoured me
with the following particulars respecting them:--"Though good-humoured towards
the person who feeds them, they are always savage towards all other kinds of
birds.  I placed three sparrows in the cage of a Thrush one evening, and found
them killed, as well as nearly stripped of their feathers, the next morning.  So
perfectly gentle did this bird become, that when I opened its cage, it would
follow me about the yard and the garden.  The instant it saw me take a spade or
a hoe, it would follow at my heels, and, as I turned up the earth, would pick up
every insect or worm thus exposed to its view.  I kept it for three years, and
its affection for me at last cost it its life