THE SONG THRUSH 
TURDUS MUSICUS 
Loca names in surrounding counties: ‘“* Mavis” 
(Essex). 
Status 1N British Avirauna: A common and widely 
distributed resident, subject to some local migration, and 
its numbers perceptibly increased in autumn in certain 
districts. 
RADIAL ee eee WITHIN FIFTEEN MILES OF ST. 
Paut’s: ‘The present species is unquestionably the 
commonest and most generally dispersed Metropolitan 
‘Thrush. From the two-mile radius, which includes 
part of the Green Park and the whole of St. James’s Park, 
the Song Thrush may be found in numbers that only vary 
in response to the suitability of its haunt. ‘To give its 
distribution in detail here would require a page or more 
merely to list the names of almost every open space 
sufficiently covered with trees and undergrowth to afford 
it cover. ‘There are few places it frequents in which it 
does not habitually nest, and I have often remarked its ~ 
home in some evergreen tree in the most frequented 
spots. As the suburban circle widens the Song Thrush 
increases in numbers. It is a bird that Londoners 
should dearly prize, for it voices in unstinted abundance 
one of the sweetest and the most charming echoes of the 
countryside. I have stood in Trafalgar Square in the 
quiet of a springtide dawn listening enthralled to the 
varied notes of this loud-songed chorister, wafted over 
the grimy roofs of Spring Gardens from the plane-trees 
in St. James’s Park. In a few hours the roar of the traffic 
conceals the music, but the song goes on just the same 
the livelong day. 
‘Town life has modified the habits of the Song Thrush 
but little; and it is this fact that renders the bird’s 
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