THE THRUSH GENUS 375 



four or five bright blue or green spotted eggs, forms a work of art that, 

 both in its harmony of shape and colour, is a sight that would, one 

 imagines, stay even the profaning hand of the collector. Not less 

 beautiful are said to be the lichen-clad nests of the redwing, but for 

 these one must go to the birds' northern homes, to Iceland, the 

 Fseroes, Russia, or Siberia. In addition to the customary materials, 

 Thrushes, like other species, will sometimes use all kinds of odds and 

 ends, such as paper and coloured wool. One mistle-thrush has been 

 known to make the outside of its nest gay with the white feathers 

 brought from a neighbouring colony of herring-gulls. 1 Another nest 

 of the same species, shown on Plate xin., p. 318, is all decked with 

 paper streamers, as if the bird had made preparations to salute the 

 passage of royalty. The finishing touch is supplied by a loose end 

 of cord which is seen hanging with unstudied grace down the side of 

 the trunk. 



A variety of material will enter into the exterior composition of one 

 and the same nest. This is illustrated by the following details of five 

 nests of the song-thrush, all of which I found in gorse bushes within 

 fifty yards of one another : (1) grass with a small amount of gorse and 

 twigs, and one bit of wool ; (2) grass, moss, stalks ; (3) grass, moss, 

 bracken ; (4) grass, a little wool ; (5) grass, moss, hairs. A sixth nest 

 built in a gorse bush within the same area had its outside composed 

 of nothing but the bristling twigs of this bush. It would be 

 interesting to know why some of the birds chose one material and 

 some another. The accessories, bracken, wool, hair may have been 

 accidental discoveries, rare finds, that took the fancy of the builder 

 as he went collecting here and there. But why did one thrush 

 totally ignore the staple material dry grass, and use gorse alone ? 

 Both were equally accessible. Again, in one and the same thicket I 

 have found thrush's nests with the outsides made of moss only, of 

 moss mixed with other material such as twigs, dry grass, stalks, and 

 of dry grass only. The most accessible was moss, which lay strewn in 



1 Zoologist, 1906, p. 10 (S. G. Cummings). 



