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THRASHER

1907

THRUSH

forests of fir, oak, chestnut etc., but parts of it, as the great plain of Adrianople, were very fertile; cattle, sheep, horses and swine were kept; and the chief products were wheat, millet, hemp and wine. Its gold and silver mines led to conquest by Philip of Macedon and by Lysimachus. Who the early Thracians were is not known. They were not Greeks, and they lived by robbery and war. The Greeks first heard of them through their coastal colonies, the chief of which was Byzantium. But the interior of Thrace kept its independence, except for a short time when conquered by the Persian general Megabazus, until conquest by Macedonia. In 168 B. C. it became Roman territory, was colonized by Sar-matians and Goths, overrun by Attila and Alaric, and conquered by Amurath the Turk in 1353.

Thrasher. See THRUSH (BROWN).

Thread, a twisted filament of flax, wool, cotton, silk or other fibrous substance, making a fine, strong and well-rounded as well as lengthy line for sewing with. For the operation of drawing out and twisting into thread see SPINNING.

Three Rivers, Can., county-seat of Maurice County, Quebec, is on St. Lawrence River at the head of tide-water and where the St. Maurice divides before entering the greater stream. It extensively manufactures the bog-iron found near by and does a large trade in lumber. It was founded in 1634. The population is 9,981.

Thresh'ing Machine', a machine or apparatus for beating out the seed of grain and separating it from the straw. In recent and more perfect machines, besides the grain-conveyer which carries the grain, chaff and short straws by an oscillating motion to the sieves in the shoe, where it is cleaned by the fanblast, there usually are attached operating grain-weighers, measurers, tailings, elevators and baggers, in addition to self-feeders, automatic band-cutters and other mechanically operated and labor-saving devices. The perfection reached to-day by^ the modern type of American thresher is indicated by the fact that, where driven by an engine of 15 or 20 horse-power, as many as 4,000 bushels a day are threshed, with the best and most satisfactory results in separating the grain from the straw.

Throwing the Hammer. See PUTTING THE SHOT.

Thrush, the common name for any bird belonging to the genus Turdus. Thrushes occupy the highest rank in the class of birds. They belong to a large family which embraces about 300 species found in most parts of the world. They usually are fine singers. The eastern hemisphere has a larger number of varieties than the western one. Our familiar robin is a thrush. Of the various thrushes common in the eastern

United States all, save the robin, have plain, brown backs and spotted breasts. The wood-thrush is the best known. It is a bird about two inches shorter than the robin, cinnamon brown above with a

WOOD-THRUSH

whitish breast spotted with very distinct dusky spots. As its name indicates, it is a bird fond of woods, but will perch and sing in maples and elms on quiet village-streets. Its voice is flute-like and its song lively and engaging. It nests in woodland and in shrubbery about a house; builds a nest closely resembling that of the robin but somewhat deeper, the materials being leaves, roots, weed-stems, mud, bits of cloth and paper. There are three or four (rarely five), greenish-blue eggs. It is also known as the song-thrush, and corresponds to the song-thrush of Europe, which is a little larger but otherwise like our wood-thrush. The hermit-thrush is a northern bird smaller than the wood-thrush. It seldom nests south of Vermont or northern Michigan, and extends northward to the Arctic regions. It is not often seen, but the song of this shy bird is of rarest beauty. Wilson's thrush or the veery ranges between the two in nesting habits, not extending so far north as the hermit nor so far south as the wood-thrush. It seldom nests south of 40° N. It is one of the smaller thrushes, and utters a song of much sweetness, its voice sometimes being heard at night. The brown thrasher, also called brown thrush and ground-thrush, is the "merry, brown thrush sitting up in a tree." This bird is longer than the robin, of slender build, red-brown above, underneath white spotted with dark brown; its tail is very long. In the manner of using the tajt to