North American thrushes (Turdidæ) constitute a small but interesting group of birds, most of which are of retiring habits but noted as songsters. They consist of the birds commonly known as thrushes, robins, bluebirds, Townsend's solitaire, and the wheatears. The red-winged thrush of Europe (_Turdus musicus_) is accidental in Greenland, and the wheatears (_Saxicola œnanthe_ subspp.) are rarely found in the Western Hemisphere except in Arctic America. Within the limits of the United States are 11 species of thrushes, of which the following 6 are discussed in this bulletin: Townsend's solitaire (_Myadestes townsendi_), the wood thrush (_Hylocichla mustelina_), the veery and willow thrush (_Hylocichla fuscescens_ subspp.), the gray-cheeked and Bicknell's thrushes (_Hylocichla aliciæ_ subspp.), the olive-backed and russet-backed thrushes (_Hylocichla ustulata_ subspp.), and the hermit thrushes (_Hylocichla guttata_ subspp.). An account of the food habits of the 5 species of robins and bluebirds appeared in Department Bulletin No. 171. As a group thrushes are plainly colored and seem to be especially adapted to thickly settled rural districts, as the shyest of them, with the exception of the solitaire, do not require any greater seclusion than that afforded by an acre or two of woodland or swamp. The thrushes are largely insectivorous, and also are fond of spiders, myriapods, sowbugs, snails, and angleworms. The vegetable portion of their diet consists mostly of berries and other small fruits. As a family thrushes can not be called clean feeders, for the food eaten often contains a considerable proportion of such matter as dead leaves, stems, and other parts of more or less decayed vegetation. It might be supposed that this was gathered from the ground with insects and other food, but investigation shows that much of it has a different origin. It was noticed that the setæ or spines of earthworms were a very common accompaniment of this decayed vegetation. Earthworms themselves are rather rarely found in stomachs, although some birds, as the robin, eat them freely. It is well known that the food of earthworms consists largely of partially decayed vegetable matter found in the soil. Hence it is probable that decayed vegetation found in the stomachs of thrushes is the food contained in the earthworms when they were swallowed. The tissues of worms are quickly digested, leaving the contents of their alimentary canals mixed with the hard indigestible setæ or spines.