'2 BIRDS OF LANCASHIRE. 



with dry grass, but sometimes plastered a little with 

 mud like that of the Song-Thrush, is often placed high 

 up in the trees, and would be difficult to see, were it not 

 that pieces of sheep's-wool, half loose, almost always 

 depend from it in very slovenly fashion. The Mistle- 

 Thrush is double-brooded, and the first lot of eggs is 

 laid from the end of March to May, but most generally 

 in April. It appears to increase in numbers, and Mr. 

 Hugh P. Hornby says that at St. Michael's-on-Wyre it 

 is most plentiful when hard weather begins to set in, 

 remaining so long as there are any yew-berries to feed 

 on. Mr. J. Plant, writing in 1876, says that it only 

 visits Peel Park, Salford (coming to feed on the haw- 

 thorn-berries) in severe winters, but when these are pro- 

 tracted, Mr. J. Hardy says it disappears altogether from 

 the neighbourhood of Manchester. The hard winters of 

 1878, 1879, and 1880 thinned its numbers very much. 

 Its song, which is louder than that of the Song-Thrush, 

 though not so varied, may be heard the 3'ear through ; 

 except in the severest weather, when it only utters its 

 whistling call-note. 



[Mr. R. J. Howard says that on the edge of the fells 

 the Mistle-Thrush nests on the tops of dry stone walls. 

 On May 14th, 1892, he visited a nest from which Mr. 

 Altham had taken two eggs on 7th, substituting two of 

 Blackbird ; by 14th the Mistle-Thrush had laid three 

 more eggs, and had just hatched one of the Blackbird's. 

 The nest was on the ground at the edge of a clough : a 

 situation in which Mr. Howard had previously found 

 nests of the Song-Thrush and Blackbird, but never one 

 of the Mistle-Thrush.— Ed.] 



