MERULA VISCIVORA. 245 



" By faith, I'm no sure aboot her. I cliima want her to come 

 that way again ;" then fairly beaten, he slunk down the tree. 

 But, like a baffled craven, or a greedy gardener who wants to 

 save a few over-ripe cherries, he vowed to destroy both bird and 

 eggs, so he shot her next day. I got that faithful mother 

 stuffed, and have her still. This was probably the same bird 

 whose nest was twice harried in April and May ; hence her 

 determined effort to protect her eggs, and also for the eggs 

 being smaller than any I had seen. But besides guarding their 

 eggs, I have seen them dash at crows and chase them away 

 from their young when flown and feeding in a field. I climbed 

 up the tree and inspected the nest. There were four deep- 

 sitten eggs and the broken one. It was 20 feet up in a fork 

 of the tree, which was plastered with a layer of cow's dung to 

 fix it. The other materials were built on the top of this, and 

 not adhering to the tree, for when I removed the nest it came 

 away wholly, leaving the most of the dung, in which a lot of 

 centipedes and sclaters crawled thus high up, beneath the very 

 nest of one of their deadly enemies. But such is nature — the 

 strong preying upon the weak, sometimes sheltering them ; and 

 lordly man preying upon all — even upon himself — not knowing 

 his own greatness, and at the same time his own brief littleness. 

 I have seen missel thrushes sitting on the backs of sheep feeding 

 on the " kidds" or parasites found amongst the fleece — the sheep 

 coolly grazing, taking no heed of the time when as mutton they 

 would be eaten themselves. But, as Hamlet says, " Thus runs the 

 world away," that is, if it ever will or can run away from its own 

 eternal " sphere of influence," as the British Government or 

 zealous Christian missionaries might say. 



This nest was composed of roots, dried grass, and sheep's 

 wool in abundance, along with hay, twigs, straw, bits of paper, 

 and rags, all compactly woven together, the inside lined with 

 soft dry grass. It measured 4 inches by 2| inches inside, and 8 

 inches over all by 4 inches deep. The gardener's mother-in-law 

 told me that the lady's collar I got in the previous nest belonged 

 to Abbey Park housemaid. It was a fine hand-wrought Yandyked 

 one which she knitted and gave to the housemaid as a present. 

 It was stolen off the green, and found woven in the missel 

 thrush's nest as stated ; but a bird was never suspected of the 

 theft. Fourteen years before this, when Mr Robert Chambers 

 (of Edinburgh Journal fame) and family lived in Abbey Park 

 House, two pairs of knitted cuffs belonging to Mrs Chambers 

 also disappeared from the bleaching-green in the same 



