2 BIRDS OF ICELAND 



in a birch fork quite a yard from the ground. The 

 nest is made of fine twigs, usually of the birch, mixed 

 with grass and moss, then lined with mud or earth, 

 then again with fine grass, like the Blackbird's, of 

 which the eggs also are a small copy, but usually a 

 trifle greener in ground-colour. Sometimes three eggs 

 only form a sitting, but four or five is the usual 

 number. 



As this bird is so well known, and is, moreover, the 

 only thrush likely to be met with in Iceland, I have 

 not thought it worth while to give a description of the 

 plumage ; but I may mention that the English name 

 refers to the bright chestnut patch on either side 

 of the breast, and partly under the wing, and that 

 any thrush found without these should be carefully 

 preserved. 



The low chuckle of the Eedwing is a familiar 

 autumn and winter experience in England; the true 

 song we never hear in this country. It may have 

 been, as Howard Saunders remarks in his Manual, 

 ' unduly eulogised,' but it has been unduly depreciated 

 too ; and I am quite unable to follow Professor Newton 

 when he alludes to it (Baring Gould, p. 404) as a 

 ' monotonous twitter,' though I admit a certain same- 

 ness. But the tone is as melodious as that of the 

 Song Thrush, if it is as wanting in variety as that 

 of the Missel Tlirush, and to hear it on a fine sunny 

 morning in Iceland is delightful ; its wildness har- 

 monises so exactly with the rocky birch-strewn hill- 

 sides, and yet with the Spring brightness, too, that it 



