The passages below are reprinted word for word from two printings of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farmers’ Bulletin 630 — the 1915 edition and the 1926 revision, which report opposite animal-versus-vegetable percentages for the very same 636 thrasher stomachs — followed by Thomas Gentry’s 1882 catbird account, reproduced as historical description, all cited in full at the end.

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The thrasher’s account, as printed in 1915

From the 1915 printing. — The brown thrasher 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.

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.

The same stomach paragraph, reprinted in 1926

From the 1926 printing. — 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.

The catbird’s ledger, 1915

From the 1915 printing. — The catbird, like the thrasher, is a lover of swamps and delights to make its home in a tangle of wild grapevines, greenbriers, and shrubs, where it is safe from attack and can find its favorite food in abundance. It is found throughout the United States west to the Rocky Mountains, and extends also from Washington, Idaho, and Utah northward into the provinces of Canada. It winters in the Southern States, Cuba, Mexico, and Central America.

Reports from the Mississippi Valley indicate that the catbird is sometimes a serious annoyance to fruit growers. The reason for such reports may possibly be found in the fact that on the prairies fruit-bearing shrubs, which afford so large a part of this bird’s food, are conspicuously absent. With the settlement of this region comes an extensive planting of orchards, vineyards, and small-fruit gardens, which furnish shelter and nesting sites for the catbird as well as for other species.

There is in consequence a large increase in the numbers of the birds, but no corresponding gain in the supply of native fruits upon which they were accustomed to feed. Under these circumstances what is more natural than for the birds to turn to cultivated fruits for their food? The remedy is obvious: Cultivated fruits can be protected by the simple expedient of planting the wild species which are preferred by the birds. Some experiments with catbirds in captivity show that the Russian mulberry is preferred to any cultivated fruit.

The stomachs of 645 catbirds were examined and found to contain 44 per cent of animal (insect) and 58 per cent of vegetable food. Ants, beetles, caterpillars, and grasshoppers constitute three-fourths of the animal food, the remainder being made up of bugs, miscellaneous insects, and spiders. One-third of the vegetable food consists of cultivated fruits, or those which may be cultivated, as strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries; but while we debit the bird with the whole of this, it is probable—and in the eastern and well-wooded part of the country almost certain—that a large part is obtained from wild vines.

The rest of the vegetable matter is mostly wild fruit, as cherries, dogwood, sour gum, elderberries, greenbrier, spiceberries, black alder, sumac, and poison ivy. Although the catbird sometimes does considerable harm by destroying small fruit, it can not on the whole be considered injurious. On the contrary, in most parts of the country it does far more good than harm.

The catbird paragraph as revised in 1926

From the 1926 printing. — The stomachs of 645 catbirds were examined and found to contain 44 per cent of animal (insect) and 56 per cent of vegetable food. Ants, beetles, caterpillars, and grasshoppers constitute three-fourths of the animal food, the remainder being made up of bugs, miscellaneous insects, and spiders. One-third of the vegetable food consists of cultivated fruits, or those which may be cultivated, as strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries; but while we debit the bird with the whole of this, it is probable–and in the eastern and well-wooded part of the country almost certain–that a large part is obtained from wild vines.

The rest of the vegetable matter is mostly wild fruit, as cherries, dogwood, sour gum, elderberries, greenbrier, spiceberries, black alder, sumac, and poison ivy. Although the catbird sometimes does considerable harm by destroying small fruit, it can not on the whole be considered injurious. On the contrary, in most parts of the country it does far more good than harm.

Two printings, same stomachs

Inside the catbird’s nest — an 1882 naturalist’s account

Nidification ordinarily commences about the 18th of May. The nest is placed in various positions–sometimes on a horizontal limb, occasionally in a crotch, but generally among the branches of the bush upon which it reposes. The materials of composition are as varied as they are numerous. In thickets, and also in places removed from human habitations, a platform of dried leaves, slender sticks, or weeds is used as a basis, on which is reared a superstructure of small twigs, fine roots, herbaceous plants, bits of straws, pine needles, and other materials which are common to such situations.

But when a nest is built in close proximity to the home of man, bits of string, strands of silk or thread, and bunches of cotton or wool are appropriated, and made to do excellent service.

The nest which we have figured in the Plate was found in the vicinity of Philadelphia, Pa., in the summer of 1876. It is represented the usual size, and shown in its natural position upon a cluster of blackberry branches. Exteriorly, it is formed of wrapping string, bits of thread, fine roots, cotton ravelings, a few grayish lichens, and bunches of discolored raw cotton in great quantities.

Interiorly, there is a lining of slender grass stems, which monotony is relieved in a measure by a piece of lamp-wick. The external diameter is five inches, and the height about two and a half. The cavity is three and a half inches, and the depth an inch and a half.

The nest being completed, which is usually the case in about five days from the time of starting, a brief season elapses before any eggs are laid. In the Northern States this happens about the third week of May, and then only one is deposited each day, for four or five days. The necessary complement being laid, the female immediately takes the nest, and incubation follows.

This is her exclusive task for a period of twelve or thirteen days. While she is thus engaged, the male stations himself close-by the nest, only departing therefrom in quest of food for himself and partner. Should an enemy approach, he assails the intruder with commendable fearlessness and boldness. Various snakes, particularly the black-snake, are their inveterate foes.

When an attack is made by one of these wily creatures, both parents, heedless of danger, often fly so close to the assailant as to lose their lives in efforts to prevent the nest being ravished and despoiled. But in the case of human depredators, knowing that resistance would be futile, they seek to deter them from any contemplated sacrilege by the most discordant cries and frantic gestures.

The young are objects of tenderest solicitude. Both parents vie with each other in rendering them every needed service. While one is absent from home in search of food for their rapacious appetites, the other is guarding the nest and its precious charges with the most jealous care. Earthworms, spiders, flies, caterpillars of non-irritating properties, together with such berries as the season affords, are collected in vast quantities, and fed to these helpless creatures.

But as they increase in size and age, other articles are added to their voluminous bill of fare. In about twelve days from the time of hatching, the young are able to quit the nest, and in six days more, are ready to be initiated into the mysteries of flight. This important duty devolves exclusively upon the male parent.

The eggs are oval in form, of a dark emerald green color, very highly polished, and measure .97 of an inch in length, and .68 in width. There is small chance of confounding this with any other American bird’s eggs–certainly after a specimen has been once seen. Dr. Abbott, as quoted by Ernest Ingersoll, once discovered a nest, at Trenton, N. J., that contained purely white eggs, which hatched in due time into perfect young.

Similar instances are known in the case of other species laying dark eggs, where one or two white examples have been found among others of the normal color in the same nest-complement. But a single brood is positively known to be raised, although cases have come under our observation of nests with fresh eggs as late as the 15th of August–possibly the work of birds whose early efforts had been frustrated by enemies, or by some accident.

Source

Some Common Birds Useful to the Farmer, U.S. Department of Agriculture Farmers’ Bulletin 630 (1915 edition), “Brown Thrasher” and “Catbird.” Project Gutenberg #62696. Some Common Birds Useful to the Farmer, Farmers’ Bulletin 630 (1926 revised edition), “Brown Thrasher” and “Catbird.” Project Gutenberg #62678. Thomas G. Gentry, Nests and Eggs of the Birds of the United States (1882), Plate III, Cat-Bird. Project Gutenberg #45063. Public domain. Project Gutenberg #62696, #62678, and #45063.

Passages reproduced verbatim; where the editions agree the cleaner 1915 text is quoted, and the two revised stomach paragraphs are quoted from the 1926 printing, labeled. Mechanical edits: hard-wrapped lines rejoined; footnote markers ([14], [15]) and their Latin-name footnotes removed; illustration placeholders and “(fig. 5)”/“(fig. 6)” cross-references removed; italic underscores dropped; one OCR fix in the Gentry text, “sometimes 011 a horizontal limb” → “sometimes on a horizontal limb.” No other changes.