160 



THE SONG THRUSH, OR MAVIS. 



time they can build their nest very quickly, for when a mill- 

 wright in the district and three of his men were making a 

 thrashing machine they saw two thrushes begin their nest one 

 morning. They new over their heads and up amongst the 

 joists, entering by the wide door where the men were working, 

 and continued making their nest with all speed, quite heedless 

 of the hammering below. Next morning at six o'clock they 

 saw one of the birds sitting on the still unfinished nest. 

 Prompted by curiosity, an apprentice climbed up and found she 

 had laid an egg before the nest was completed, for only the 

 bottom of the inside cup was plastered, instinctively knowing 

 that it could not be done so well afterwards. When all the 

 eggs were laid these watchful millwrights noted that the cock 

 took his share in the hatching, but did not sit so long as the 

 hen, and that he often fed her while she was on the nest. In 

 thirteen days the young were hatched. The old birds carried 

 off the shells. But besides the shells of their eggs, old birds 

 carry off the droppings of their young — which are enclosed in 

 jelly-like bags — and dropped away from the nest to keep it 

 clean, which I have seen them often do. It is a wise provision 

 of Nature, for it not only keeps the nest clean, but keeps it 

 from being openly seen. Curiously, as long as young birds are 

 kept to their nest in a basket or box, the membranous bag 

 continues, but if they are let out it ceases ; if shut down again 

 it reappears. The heat and quiescence of the nest certainly 

 cause it, which shows marvellous provision of Almighty 

 wisdom. Macgillivray says — 



" On Thursday morning, the 15th June 1837, a pair began to build in an 

 apple tree in my garden. On Friday afternoon the nest was finished, and 

 on Saturday morning, the 17th, the first egg was laid in it, although the 

 plaster in the inside was very wet. On Wednesday, the 21st, the female 

 began to sit on five eggs ; and on Monday, the 17th July, the young ones 

 flew out of their nest." 



On the 6th of June a keen ornithologist, wishing to know 

 how soon the mavis laid again after being deprived of her 

 young, took four ripe young ones out of the nest, and having 

 caught the female, pulled the feathers out of her tail as a mark, 

 and set her free. On the 21st he found her sitting on four 

 eggs in another nest, these he took ; and on the 8th of July she 

 had another nest and eggs, which he allowed her to hatch and 

 rear. And to show that birds possess reason, H. A. Page gives 

 an instance of " intellect in birds " — 



> "A thrush, not knowing the power of gunpowder, built her nest on a 

 ridge of a whinstone quarry where blasting was going on. At first she 



