SONG-THRUSH. 81 



It is true that sometimes, even in severe weather, an 

 individual or so may be found here and there, leading a 

 solitary life in some sheltered hedge-bottom or thick 

 plantation which may afford conditions- of existence 

 more favourable than are elsewhere to be met with ; but 

 this is quite an exceptional occurrence. Towards the 

 end of January or beginning of February, their return 

 commences. They reappear at first slowly and singly ; 

 but as spring advances, in considerable abundance 

 and without interruption, until, in the height of the 

 breeding season, they by far outnumber their more 

 stay-at-home cousins, the Blackbirds." The same 

 thing may be also noticed in our eastern district, 

 although probably from its cultivated and more sheltered 

 character, the " Exodus" does not take place so early ; 

 yet, with the first indication of severe frost, their 

 " southern proclivities" are proclaimed by their absence, 

 and even of the very few that still linger about our cities 

 and suburbs, many are starved with both cold and 

 hunger, or meet a less lingering but not less cer- 

 tain death, from the school-boy gunners at Christmas. 

 The curious fact of a song-thrush having laid and 

 hatched her eggs on the bare ground in a plantation at 

 Sprowston, is recorded by Mr. J. H. Gurney in the 

 " Zoologist," p. 3475. In this case the nest consisted 

 " simply of a little hollow scratched out at the foot and 

 under the shelter of a small bush." The same gentleman 

 has also noted in the above journal for 1864 (p. 9105), the 

 singular fact of a pair of song-thrushes having built 

 on the top of a straw beehive, resting on a covered 

 stand in his kitchen garden, at Catton; when probably 

 owing to the hive being fully tenanted, the female deserted 

 her nest after laying three eggs. One of the most ex- 

 traordinary nests, however, of this species that has come 

 under my notice, both as to locality and construction, 

 was shown me in 1861 by Mr. E. N, Bacon, who was 

 M 



