lo The Song Thrush. 



iipon something novel), as many as seven or eiglit times. To my 

 mind the song is rather joyous and vigorous, than melodious : when heard at 

 early dawn as one wakens, it pleases the first time, annoys the second, 

 irritates the third, and finally becomes an intolerable nuisance: the Blackbird's 

 melody, on the contrary, is always welcome. As one lies in bed trying to 

 sleep, the whistle of the Song Thrush resolves itself into short sentences. I 

 remember one particular bird which bothered me for weeks ; in all weathers 

 he would sit on a tree, within sight of my bedroom window, shouting as 

 follows : — Deal d wet, deal o' ivet, deal d ivet, deal d ivet ; I do, (pronounced 

 dough as if he were trying to say know witli a cold), / do, I do, I do; 

 Whdd do it? Who d do it? Whdd do it? Who d do it? Pretty diek, pretty diek, 

 pretty diek, pretty dick," and so on ad nauseam. 



The food of the Song Thrush, when at liberty, consists of insects and 

 their larvae or pupae, worms, snails, berries, and seeds ; in the spring and 

 summer living food is preferred, but towards autumn and throughout the 

 winter, berries and grain when procurable, are devoured, husks and hard 

 kernels being ejected some five or ten minutes after the food has been 

 swallowed ; thus it is that woody seeds like that of the hawthorn are carried 

 far from the parent tree, to spring up and make the unthinking wonder 

 whence they came. 



In captivity the Song Thrush sings quite as well as in its native haunts, 

 indeed, a good bird often continues his song from November to the end of 

 July ; but if it is to reproduce the wild notes, it must be a wild-caught bird ; 

 for a nestling, brought up by hand, either sings a few short monotonous sing- 

 song phrases ; or, if it be a vigorous bird, brought up amongst other feathered 

 companions, it shouts out the most deafening, though sometimes comical jumble 

 of notes imaginable. My experience of hand-reared birds as compared with 

 those caught wild is also unfavourable to the former in other respects, I have 

 found them vicioi\s and domineering in an aviary, dirty and wasteful in a 

 cage ; they are always more wild than a cage-moulted trapped bird. The 

 latter, after its first moult, becomes gentle, confiding, and neither wasteful 

 nor dirty ; it has even been trusted in an aviary with small Finches, and I 

 have never seen it molest them. As to the cruelty of caging up wild birds, 

 it is more fanciful than real, a bird does not sing when it is unhappy, 

 much may, however, be said as regards the cruelty of rearing birds from the 

 nest ; the parents' anger and annoyance is the least part of it, the bungling 

 method of feeding the young, often upon the most unsuitable food, is its 

 worst feature. 



