io BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



remember one particular bird which bothered me for weeks ; in all weathers 

 he would sit on a tree, within sight of my bedroom window, shouting as 

 follows: "Deal o* wet, deal a' wet, deal o wet, deal <?' wet; I do, (pronounced 

 dougli as if he were trying to say knoiv with a cold) , / do, I do, I do ; 

 Who'd do it? Who'd do it? Who d do it? Who'd do it? Pretty dick, pretty dick, 

 pretty dick, pretty dick;" and so on ad nauseam. 



The food of the Song Thrush, when at liberty, consists of insects and 

 their larvse or pupae, worms, snails, berries, and seeds; in the spring and 

 summer living food is preferred, but towards autumn and throughout the 

 winter, berries and grain when procurable, are devoured, husks and hard 

 kernels being ejected some five or ten minutes after the food has been 

 swallowed; thus it is that woody seeds like that of the hawthorn are carried 

 far from the parent tree, to spring up and make the unthinking wonder 

 whence they came. 



In captivity the Song Thrush sings quite as well as in its native haunts, 

 indeed, a good bird often continues his song from November to the end of 

 July; but if it is to reproduce the wild notes, it must be a wild-caught bird; 

 for a nestling, brought up by hand, either sings a few short monotonous sing- 

 song phrases; or, if it be a vigorous bird, brought up amongst other feathered 

 companions, it shouts out the most deafening, though sometimes comical jumble 

 of notes imaginable. My experience of hand-reared birds as compared with 

 those caught wild is also unfavourable to the former in other respects, I have 

 found them vicious and domineering in an aviary, dirty and wasteful in a 

 cage; they are always more wild than a cage-moulted trapped bird. The 

 latter, after its first moult, becomes gentle, confiding, and neither wasteful 

 nor dirty; it has even been trusted in an aviary with small Finches, and I 

 have never seen it molest them. As to the cruelty of caging up wild birds, 

 it is more fanciful than real, a bird does not sing when it is unhappy, 

 much may, however, be said as regards the cruelty of rearing birds from the 

 nest ; the parents' anger and annoyance is the least part of it, the bungling 

 method of feeding the young, often upon the most unsuitable food, is its 

 worst feature. 



The best staple food for this, and all other insectivorous birds, is composed 

 of stale household bread crumbled, mixed with half the quantity of preserved 

 yolk of egg, preserved ants' cocoons, and Abrahams' food (or one of the 

 many advertised egg foods), the mixture being moistened by the addition of 

 potatoes, boiled the day before, and passed through a masher when required 

 for use; on this mixture with the addition of a few insects, or worms, and 



