198 MISSEL-THRUSH. 



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 ob- 

 served 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 ; 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 com- 

 paratively 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 autum and winter, 

 builds in my garden close to a walk where people are passing 

 all day long. 



Wall-fruits abound with me this year ; but my grapes, 

 that used to be forward and good, are at present 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, and 

 half disqualify me for a naturalist ; for, when those fits are 

 upon me, I lose all the pleasing notices and little intimations 



* When magpies have young, they will constantly attack the nests of other 

 birds, and frequently the old birds, for food. Indeed there are few things on 

 which these voracious birds will not feed. The following is extracted from a 

 communication made by Mr. Wasey : " As I was travelling yesterday 

 between Andover and the railway station I noticed on the road a magpie 

 struggling with some animal ; on the approach of the coach it took flight, 

 bearing away its prize to about sixty yards across a field, when it dropped it, 

 and on my brother getting off to see what it was, he found it to be a full- 

 grown red-wing. The magpie had pecked its eyes out to prevent its escape, 

 and would soon have killed it, had we not so unceremoniously deprived him 

 of his dinner. I believe it is not generally known that magpies ever prey 

 upon living birds, especially a bird of such magnitude and weight as a fieldfare. 

 No doubt it was hardly pressed by hunger and the inclemency of the season ; 

 but it is a fact worthy the attention of ornithologists, and if you think fit to 

 take notice of the circumstance I will vouch for its truth." 



