MISSEL-THRUSH. 21 1 



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

 confined and foddered in a yard, and make plenty of 

 dung. 



Linnseus says, that hawks " padscuntur indudas 

 cum avibus, 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, driving such birds as approach its nest, 

 with great fury, to a distance. 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 mag- 

 pies came determined to storm the nest of a missel- 

 thrush ; the dams defended their mansion with great 

 vigour, and fought resolutely ; but numbers at last 

 prevailed, they tore the nest to pieces, and swallowed 

 the young alive. 



In the season of nidification, the wildest birds are 

 comparatively tame. Thus the ring-dove breeds in 

 my fields, though they are continually frequented ; 

 and the missel-thrush, though most shy and wild in 

 the autumn and winter, builds in my garden, close to 

 a walk where people are passing all day long. 



Wall- fruit abounds with me this year; but my 

 grapes, that used to be forward and good, are at pre- 

 sent backward beyond all precedent : and this is 

 not the worst of the story ; for the same ungenial 

 weather, the same black cold solstice, has injured 

 the more necessary fruits of the earth, and disco- 

 loured and blighted our wheat. The crop of hops 

 promises to be very large. 



Frequent returns of deafness incommode me sadly, 

 p 2 



