OF SELBORNE. 179 



A fanner, near Weyhill, fallows his land with two teams of 

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

 afternoon. When these animals have done their work, they 

 are penned, all night, like sheep, on the fallow. In the win- 

 ter they are confined and foddered in a yard, and make plenty 

 of dung. 



LinncBus says that hawks " paciscuntur inducias cum ambus , 

 yuamdiu 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 it's nest, with great fury, to a 

 distance. The Welch call it pen y llwyn, the head or master 

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

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

 guard to the new-sown legumens. In general he is very suc- 

 cessful 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 aris fy focis; 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 compara- 

 tively 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 present backward beyond 

 all precedent: and this is not the worst of the story; for the 



* [Both these species still keep up their familiarity with the same 

 spots. The ring-dove not only builds in the grounds near the house, but 

 a pair, last summer, nested in an elm within a few yards of the door 

 which forms the ordinary passage into the garden, and this year a pair, 

 probably the same, chose a large fir on the lawn, very near the house. 

 The missel-thrush has its nest every year in the spot indicated in the 

 text. T. B.] 



