THE THRUSHES. 241 



flags, beautiful and compactly intertwined. The lining is also 

 of twisted reeds, which, with the exception of a fragment of 

 moss, seem to constitute the entire material of which the nest 

 is composed. 



Eggs. From four to six in number. Ground-colour dull 

 white or brownish-white, thickly sprinkled \\ith light brown 

 overlying and violet-grey underlying spots, which collect round 

 the larger end of the egg, and form a more or less defined dark 

 zone. In many of the eggs the dark appearance of the large 

 end is due to the predominance of the underlying spots. Axis, 

 o'75-o'8 inch ; diam., c'55-0'6. 



THE THRUSHES. FAMILY TURDIDyE. 



The Thrushes are by many naturalists considered to be the 

 highest of all birds in the natural system, on account of their 

 powers of song, which place them at the head of the " Oscines" 

 or " songsters." They are certainly highly-developed birds, and 

 possess great perfection of structure. Many of them evince 

 affinities with the Flycatchers, while others are allied to Warblers. 

 There is, however, one character which separates the Thrushes 

 from the latter family, and that is the spotted plumage of the 

 young birds, a peculiar feature, by which we learn that the 

 Nightingale, the Robin, and the Chats are all Thrushes, 

 though for so many years they have been associated with the 

 Warblers in works on natural history. The latter birds, too, 

 have a double moult, in autumn and again in spring, whereas 

 the Thrushes moult but once in the year, viz., in the autumn, 

 when the young birds throw off their spotted plumage and 

 assume that of the adults. 



The tarsus in the Turdidcz is plain on both aspects, with the 

 entire laminae smooth and without scutellations, though in a 

 few instances young birds show a slight tendency to a scute, 

 but this only occurs in a very few species. 



Thrushes may be said to be cosmopolitan in their range, and 

 they occur even in the Pacific Islands, where very few forms 

 which flourish in the Palaearctic and Nearctic Regions find a 

 home. In fact, the Thrushes are even more universally distri- 

 buted over the earth's surface than the Crows. In America, 



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