THE MISSEL-THRUSH. 207 
TURDUS VISCIVORUS. 
THE MISSEL-THRUSH. 
(Pare 8.) 
Turdus major, Briss. Orn, i. p. 200 (1760). 
Turdus viscivorus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 291 (1766); et auctorum plurimorum— 
Latham, Pallas, Temminck, Naumann, Bonaparte, Newton, Gould, Sharpe, 
Dresser, &e. 
Sylvia viscivora (Zinn.), Savi, Orn. Tose. i. p. 208 (1827). 
Ixocossyphus viscivorus (Linn.), Kaup, Natiirl. Syst. p. 145 (1829). 
Merula viscivora (Linn.), Selby, Brit. Orn. i. p. 158 (1833). 
The “ Stormeock,” as this bird is popularly called, is one of those few 
species which, during the progress of very recent times, has extended its 
range in the British Islands. This extension has taken a northerly direction, 
and may be attributed to a variety of causes—tree-planting and the laying- 
out of shrubberies and pleasure-grounds being possibly the chief encourage- 
ment. So far as the earlier history of the Missel-Thrush has been recorded, 
the bird was an inhabitant of the sheltered places, the pastoral districts of 
the lowlands; but from them it has gradually spread itself over more 
isolated and northerly plantations, woods, and coppices, up to the moor- 
land wastes. It may now be said to be a common bird in most sufficiently 
wooded localities throughout Great Britain and Ireland, becoming rather 
more local and rarer in the extreme north. The Missel-Thrush has 
gradually spread itself over the Western Isles of Scotland. In Skye 
Missel-Thrushes were fairly numerous up to the severe winter of 1879-80, 
since which time the birds have almost entirely disappeared again. Dixon 
during his stay in the season of 1881 found ene nest of this bird on the 
wooded banks of a burn; but new the bird is certainly a rare one there. 
Upon the Orkneys it is sometimes found after easterly gales—hirds most 
probably blown out of their course during migration; but it has not yet 
been recorded from Shetland. Upon the European continent the Missel- 
Thrush breeds throughout the temperate portions, extending on the west 
coast as far north as the Arctic circle. LEastwards it ranges through 
Turkestan to the North-west Himalayas and Lake Baikal. In many of 
the milder portions of its haunts the bird is resident, or is subject to in- 
ternal migration from the hills to the valleys; but by far the greater 
number winter in Southern Europe and North Africa, a few birds remain- 
ing to breed in the former locality, the Siberian birds wintering in South 
Persia, and the Indian ones seeking the lower valleys and sheltered districts 
at that season. 
