THE ROCK-THRUSH. 283 
on the small patches of grassy land near streams, seeking for earthworms 
and snails. Amongst these mountain haunts the bird’s fare is a bountiful 
one. The quantity of insect-life is something wonderful. Grasshoppers 
of nearly every conceivable shape and variety of size and colour vie with 
the birds in loudness if not in melody of song; butterflies, both rich and 
beautiful, float lazily about; and the ground and rocks around are alive 
with beetles and other forms of insect-life—almost endless in variety, and 
whose dreamy hum is, in the noon-day heat, almost the only sign of life in 
these mountain solitudes. The Rock-Thrush is not content with picking 
his food from the ground or rocks, but often pursues it in the air like 
the Flycatcher. You see him perched so quietly on a rocky boulder, 
im a mood of seeming indolence ; yet he is ever on the alert ; and his sharp 
eye is scanning the insects around him. Suddenly he launches into the 
air, and, after a short fluttering butterfly-kind of flight, he snaps at a 
passing fly and again returns to his perching-place, or goes off to his nest 
should his young be already hatched. In the late summer months these 
birds eat the berries of the various shrubs in their haunts, and sometimes 
visit the gardens for the fruit. But this kind of fare is not sought to a 
very great extent, the Rock-Thrush being almost as insectivorous as the 
Chats and Redstarts. 
As soon as the birds arrive in their summer home their song com- 
mences. In the early morning, during the season of courtship, it may, 
perhaps, be listened to with the greatest advantage. The bird usually 
sings from some rocky perch, sometimes from the old walls of ruins, 
or, more rarely, on the topmost branch of some lonely tree. But he 
does not always sing when at rest. Like the Redstart, he will ever and 
anon rise into the air and descend with wings expanded upon his perch 
again, singing all the time. Sometimes these peculiar aerial motions are 
continued several times in succession before the bird alights. The song 
of the Rock-Thrush is, indeed, a sweet and varied one; and in those 
countries it frequents the bird is in the highest request as a cage-songster, 
sometimes the most fabulous prices being paid for birds whose musical 
powers are beyond the ordinary degree of sweetness and variation. Its 
wild powerful song is equal to that of the Blackcap, and, for variety and 
tone, comes little short of the ever-changing notes of the “Throstle,” and 
the rich flute-like warblings of the Blackbird. Its call-note is a peculiar 
piping cry, somewhat similar to that of the Ring-Ouzel. 
The nest of the Rock-Thrush, from the peculiar nature of its site, is 
one of the most difficult to discover. You may search for hours, and turn 
over tons of rock and stones unsuccessfully, and at last owe its discovery 
to mere accident. It is usually placed in some convenient rock-crevice, at 
various heights, sometimes under a mass of rock lying on the ground, 
sometimes in heaps of stones, and sometimes in holes of ruined buildings ; 
