WILD CREATURES OF GARDEN AND HEDGEROW 



snails ' * is peculiar to the song thrush. No other 

 kind of bird does it, not even its cousin the black- 

 bird. When you find a heap of broken snail shells 

 you may be quite certain they are the work of 

 the thrush. Each thrush has its own particular 

 breaking stone or anvil. It may have more 

 than one, but even if it has two or three 

 they are its private property on which other 

 thrushes do not poach. The anvil is usually a 

 pebble or other hard object of just the con- 

 venient height and shape to hammer the 

 victims upon. I have seen a thrush carry a 

 snail a hundred yards or more to its favourite 

 stone, though there were many others near at 

 hand which to my eyes looked just as good; 

 but the bird evidently preferred this one, for 

 it was used for weeks, and the fragments of 

 snail shells lay thick around it. Sometimes 

 a thrush will select a pebble in the middle 

 of the garden path as its anvil, when one can 

 find out the results of each morning's hunt by 

 sweeping away the bits every day. At other 

 times the favourite stone is on a bank, or under 

 the hedge ; in fact the place does not matter as 

 long as the anvil is all right. 



1 The common banded snail, Helix nemoralis, with its many 

 varieties, is the kind preferred, 



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