4 
214. BRITISH BIRDS. 
expect to find the Song-Thrush. Like that bird, his favourite haunt is the 
bright glossy foliage of evergreens. Amongst the wild scenery of the High- 
lands the Song-Thrush gladdens the moorland wastes, and his varied 
melody is often heard amidst the mountains. 
The Song-Thrush is a skulking bird, although not perhaps so much so 
as the Blackbird. It is extremely fond of hiding under dense thickets and 
the broad close foliage of evergreens where the branches sweep the ground. 
It is here the birds obtain much of their food ; and in some cases regular 
paths are made through the dense underwood, especially peas walls or 
hedgerows, which often put you in mind of a weasel’s “run.” Indeed the 
Song-Thrush is, of all other birds, perhaps the most frequently caught m 
the “figure of four” traps set for weasels, owing to its peculiar habit of 
hopping under the brushwood. Like the Blackbird, it is flushed with diffi- 
culty when in these situations, and always prefers to hop quickly along the 
ground rather than take wing. When flushed it flies rapidly away, and 
alights suddenly, as though anxious to enter the nearest suitable cover 
and hide itself as quickly as possible. The Song-Thrush is more often seen 
above the tree-tops than the Blackbird, and will take long and rapid flights 
to and from its feeding-grounds at some elevation, seldom uttering a note. 
It becomes unusually vociferous towards evening ; and its chattering cry is 
heard well into the night. Autumn, or, perhaps, still more in the last few 
fine days before winter fairly sets in, its garrulity is the greatest. Then 
in the wooded depths of his roosting-place you hear his sharp cry, almost 
like the noise made by a ratchet-drill, which he keeps up as he flits from 
place to place long after it begins to be dark, and when most other birds 
have retired to rest. Upon the ground the Song-Thrush proceeds in a 
series of hops, seldom if ever running or walking. His attitude when in 
the act of listening intently is with the wings drooping slightly, tail almost 
horizontal, and head slightly raised; but he never elevates his tail upon 
alighting like the Blackbird. 
More than twenty years ago Professor Newton endeavoured to show in 
the pages of the ‘Ibis’ (1860, p. 83) that the Song-Thrush was a regular 
migratory bird in Great Britain. My own observations as well as those of 
Dixon and others confirm this theory. This fact has been overlooked by 
most British writers; but continental naturalists class the bird as a regular 
migrant. In our own country, as soon as the days of summer decline and 
autumnal tints appear in the landscape, the Song-Thrush is seen in little 
companies ; and as autumn passes away, and the fogs and chilly nights of 
November arrive, the birds nearly all take their departure, and where they 
once swarmed only one or two solitary individuals are to be seen. The Rivelin 
valley, a few miles from Sheffield, is annually the scene of an unmista- 
kable migration of the Song-Thrush. Late in autumn the birds for a few 
days literally swarm in the Rivelin copses, where at all other times of 
mts! 
