194 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



night, like sheep, on the fallow. In the winter they are confined 

 and foddered in a yard, and make plenty of dung. 



Linnaeus says that hawks " paciscuntur inducia scum avitni** 

 quamdiu cuculus cuculat ; " but it appears to me, that during that 

 period, many little birds are taken and destroyed by birds of prey, 

 as may be seen by their feathers left in lanes and under hedges. 



The missel-thrush is, while breeding, fierce and pugnacious, 



THE MISSEL-THRUSH (Turdus viscivoms). 



driving such birds as approach its nest with great fury to a dis- 

 tance. The Welsh call it " pen y llwyn," the head or master of 

 the coppice. He suffers no magpie, jay, or blackbird, to enter 

 the garden where he haunts ; and is, for the time, a good guard 

 to the new-sown legumens. In general, he is very successful in 

 the defence of his family ; but once I observed in my garden, 

 that several magpies came determined to storm the nest of a 

 missel-thrush : the dams defended their mansion with great vigour, 

 and fought resolutely pro arts etfocis ; but numbers at last pre- 

 vailed, they tore the nest to pieces, and swallowed the young alive. 

 In the season of nidification the wildest birds are comparativejv 

 tame. Thus the ring-dove breeds in my fields, though they are 



