Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS

THE SONG BIRDS

THE THRUSHES

(Family Turdida)
The mere mention of the word Thrush at once suggests musical ability of a high order, and well it may, for the present group numbers among its members some of the most exquisite songsters of the whole bird world. The ringing flute-like notes of the Veery, the clear, pure come-to-me or e-o-lie of the Wood Thrush, the solemn, mysterious, silvery, bell-like tones of the Hermit Thrush, as they come to us from the cool depths of the forest, and the cheerful, extended vocabulary of the Robin, have placed them one and all high in the regard of lovers of bird music. The far-famed Nightingale of Europe, together with the Throstle, or Song Thrush, and the Blackbird and Robin Redbreast, so dear to English hearts, are all members of this widespread and highly musical family.
The Turdidw, even as here restricted, are a large group, which, like many other passerine families, interdigitates at so many points with contiguous groups that it is difficult to draw any satisfactory circumscribing line. Some systema-tists have made it broad enough to include not only the more typical Thrushes and their obvious allies, but the Warblers (Syliriidtz), Mockingbirds (Mimidm), Dippers (Cinclida), Gnatcatchers (Polioptila), etc., all of which, except possibly the last, are here regarded as entitled to full family rank. The number of minor groups that it is thought necessary to recognize within the family is also a subject for more or less extensive disagreement, but it is perhaps better to recognize a goodly number, as Dr. Sharpe has done in his”HandList of Birds,”and thus obviate the necessity of drawing the diagnosis so broad. The family comprises between five and six hundred forms disposed among some seventy genera, and if the New Zealand Thrushes (Turnagra) really belong here, which some doubt, it is practically cosmopolitan, though most abundant in the warmer parts of the Old World. They are medium-sized or small birds, generally with a relatively long, distinctly notched bill, which is more or less thickly beset with rictal bristles, strong, long, or medium”booted”tarsi, generally long and pointed wings with ten primaries, and normally a square or rounded tail of twelve, or very exceptionally fourteen, feathers, though in the Solitaires, Bluebirds, etc., it is more or less emarginate. In color the plumage is ordinarily plain brown or black, often more or less varied with white, gray, chestnut, or rufous, and there is a decided tendency for the white breast to be spotted with brown; the nestling plumage is almost always spotted or squamated to a greater or less extent. They are largely terrestrial, some feeding exclusively on insects, while others, such as the true Thrushes, enjoy a mixed diet of insects and fruits.

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