134 LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY 



That their birds are more quarrelsome and pugna- 

 cious than ours I think evident. Our thrushes are 

 especially mild-mannered, Irat the missel-thrush is 

 very bold and saucy, and has been known to fly in 

 the face of persons who have disturbed the sitting 

 bird. No jay nor magpie nor crow can stand before 

 him. The Welsh call him master of the coppice, 

 and he welcomes a storm with such a vigorous and 

 hearty song that in some countries he is known as 

 storm-cock. He sometimes kills the young of other 

 birds and eats eggs, a very unthrushlike trait. 

 The whitethroat sings with crest erect, and attitudes 

 of warning and defiance. The hooper is a great 

 bully; so is the greenfinch. The wood-grouse 

 now extinct, I believe has been known to attack 

 people in the woods. And behold the grit and har- 

 dihood of that little emigrant or exile to our shores, 

 the English sparrow ! Our birds have their tilts and 

 spats also; but the only really quarrelsome mem- 

 bers in our family are confined to the flycatchers, as 

 the kingbird and great crested flycatcher. None of 

 our song-birds are bullies. 



Many of our more vigorous species, as the butcher- 

 bird, the crossbills, the pine grosbeak, the redpoll, 

 the Bohemian chatterer, the shore lark, the longspur, 

 the snow bunting, etc., are common to both conti- 

 nents. 



Have the Old World creatures throughout more 

 pluck and hardihood than those that are indigenous 

 to this continent? Behold the common mouse, how 

 he has followed man to this country and established 



