52 Bird- keep ing. 



recorded of the cleverness of a pair of these birds, who 

 built their nest in the fork of a mountain ash, close to 

 a house, and were overlooked by an invalid lady from 

 her bed-room window. They were much troubled to 

 shelter their young from the heavy rain, which fell 

 almost without intermission for two days, and at length 

 they placed a stick across the nest, and spreading their 

 wings over this, they completely sheltered it from the 

 rain, and never deserted the perch while it continued ; 

 exposing themselves to the downpour to protect their 

 young. On the second day the cock bird brought 

 food to his mate, for herself and the nestlings. As 

 soon as the rain ceased, the perch was taken away ; 

 the young were fed with grubs and caterpillars, an 

 enormous quantity of which are destroyed by the 

 Thrush tribe, who do such good service thus, that they 

 ought to be pardoned for their havoc amongst fruit 

 and berries in the autumn. They eat worms and slugs, 

 and are extremely fond of snails, the shells of which 

 they break very cleverly by beating them against a 

 stone. Sometimes a Thrush will choose one particular 

 stone for this purpose, and will carry all the snails he 

 can find to break them upon it. Young Thrushes 

 may be easily reared upon bread and milk, till they 

 are five or six weeks old, and then they should be 

 gradually weaned from it, and fed upon scraped lean 

 beef and bread crumbs. When older, their food should 

 be chiefly barley-meal, made into a paste with milk 



