LXII!.] 



OF SELBORNE. 



185 



A farmer near Weyhill fallows his land with two teams of 

 asses ; one of which works till noon, and the other in the after- 

 noon. When these animals have done their work, they are 

 penned all 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 " make a truce with other birds 

 as long as the cuckoo is heard : " " paciscuutur inducias cum 

 avibus, quamdiu cuculus cuculat:" but it appears to me that, 

 during that period, many little birds are taken and destroyed 



MAGPIE'S EGO. 





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 llwynn," the head or 

 master of the coppice. He suffers no magpie, jay, or black- 

 bird 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 for " their faith and for their 

 homes : " pro aris et focis ; but numbers at last prevailed, they 

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



[Thrushes during long droughts are of great service in hunt- 

 ing out shell-snails, 1 which they pull in pieces for their young, 



1 Of the truth of this I have been an eye-witness, having seen the common 

 thrush feeding on the shell-snail. MARKWICK. 



VOL. I. B 8 



