254 THE SONG THRUSH, OR MAVIS. 



heartlessly shot for guarding her eggs. I also knew a mavis* 

 nest on an apple tree eight feet from the ground, which I used 

 to visit when sitting on her eggs. She grew so familiar as to 

 look down at me when within three feet of her, and did notfty, 

 as if there was a tacit good feeling betwixt us — the opposite of 

 that which made the missel thrush dash at the gardener's head 

 — but it is the principle of Nature for kindness to beget 

 confidence, and harshness to beget fear. For instance, a pair 

 had their nest with five young ones on the end of a thrashing 

 machine in the district. The children instead of harrying 

 them, put down bread with which the old birds fed their young 

 until they flew. It feeds on worms, snails, insects, and fruit, 

 and when the ground is covered with snow it feeds on haws, 

 hips, berries, or what it can find. When hard pressed it also 

 resorts to the sea-beach, and with its weak bill breaks the hard 

 shell of the common periwinkle (Littorina littorea) by dashing 

 it against a stone ; it also breaks the Trochus eonulus the same 

 way, for I have seen them do it. But the favourite shell-snails 

 are the Helix nemoralis, so plentiful on the Links and Kinkell 

 braes, and the common garden snail Helix pomatia, as the 

 many fragments of their shells scattered round some stone 

 testifies. On the Links, where there are very few stones, I 

 have come across some specially used as an anvil by the 

 thrushes, surrounded with their broken shells. But when the 

 snow is deep this supply fails, and they have to resort to the 

 sea-shore, back-courts, streets, and gutters of man — as the 

 following trifling lines, " On seeing a mavis pecking in the 

 gutter amongst ice and snow, opposite my window in the 

 narrow Market Street, on March 5th, 1891, the day the barque 

 1 Merlin' was wrecked, and all hands drowned," shows — 



Dear speckled denizen of grove and wood, 



The feathered king of Scotia's summer song, 

 Which cheers thy help-mate and her callow brood, 



And makes the welkin ring the whole day long. 

 But ah ! when winter comes with icy tread, 



And drives thee shivering to the snow-paved street; 

 When all around is frozen, sere, and dead, 



Pale pity shuns thy pleading eye to meet. 



To see thee starving amongst ice and snow, 



So vainly seeking what you cannot get ; 

 Cowering and shivering — the type of woe, 



Starvation — or a cage around thee set. 



The "Merlin " was wrecked near the Step Lake. This severe 

 winter killed so many of our blythe speckled mavises that very 

 few of their bonnie blue eggs were seen in their clay-lined 



