PLATE I 

 MISTLE THRUSH. Turdus viscivorus 



April 26M, 1897. The nest from which this Plate was taken was built in a 

 small mountain ash overhanging the river Tcith, near Doune, Perthshire. In 

 this district the Mistle Thrush has been very scarce since the severe winter of 

 1895-96, and where I used to find a score of nests each year, there are now only 

 one or two pairs left. This nest was built quite close to a path, and was 

 absolutely in the open, and yet I passed the place several times on the look-out 

 for nests, and never noticed it. 



The old bird was fairly tame, and allowed me to approach quite close, but 

 would not remain on the nest till I photographed her. Whenever I succeeded 

 in setting up my camera within range she left the nest and roused the neighbour- 

 hood with her harsh cries. 



In Perthshire I have frequently found nests of these birds containing five 

 eggs, and have rarely found one with less than four, but this spring (1898), while 

 in Suffolk, I examined scores of nests, and only twice found as many as five; 

 nearly all the nests contained only three eggs, and some four, all of which were 

 highly incubated. 



I watched one nest, containing four young birds, which was placed in a 

 larch at the edge of a small plantation, and found that the old birds fed them 

 principally on a fat brownish caterpillar, varied with an occasional snail torn 

 from its shell. Round some of the stones in the neighbourhood lay heaps of 

 these broken shells, where the birds dashed them to pieces to get at the juicy 

 morsel within. 



VOL. iv. B 



