264 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



fondling tremulous voice and fluttering wings, and all the little 

 blandishments that are expressed by the young, while in a help- 



Rookery. 



less state. This gallant deportment of the males is continued 

 through the whole season of incubation. These birds do not 

 copulate on trees, nor in their nests, but on the ground in the t 

 open fields.* 



THRUSHES. 



THRUSHES during long droughts are of great service in hunting 

 out shell snails, which they pull in pieces for their young, and 

 are thereby very serviceable in gardens. f Missel thrushes do not 

 destroy the fruit in gardens like the other species of turdi, but 

 feed on the berries of misseltoe, and in the spring on ivy berries, 

 which then begin to ripen. In the summer, when their young 

 become fledged, they leave neighbourhoods, and retire to sheep 

 walks and wild commons. J 



* After the first brood of rooks are sufficiently fledged, they all leave their nest trees in the 

 day-time, and resort to some distant place in search of food, but return regularly every evening, 

 in vast flights, to their nest trees, where, after flying round several times with much noise and 

 clamour, till they are all assembled together, they take up their abode for the night. M AUK- 

 WICK. 



t The only instance I ever knew of the rook assuming the character of a predacious bird was 

 towards a brooil of young missel thrushes, which were attacked and destroyed by two or three of 

 the sable gentry from a neighbouring rookery. To be sure, it was during a period of drought, 

 when the rooks were a little put to for subsistence. The crow at all times is extremely predatory 

 in its habits. En. 



t The missel thrush is a great devourer of currants and gooseberries, also of greeli pea, as 

 gardeners well know to their cost. ED. 



