284 NATURAL HISTORY 



that, during that period, many little birds are taken and 

 destroyed by birds of prey, as may be seen by their 

 feathers left in lanes and under hedges. 



The missel-thrush is, while breeding, fierce and pug- 

 nacious, driving such birds as approach its nest, with 

 great fury, to a distance. The Welsh call it pen y llwyn, 

 the head or master of the coppice. He suffers no mag- 

 pie, jay, or blackbird, to enter the garden where he 

 haunts ; and is, for the time, a good guard to the new 

 sown legumens. In general he is very successful in the 

 defence of his family : but once I observed in my gar- 

 den, that several magpies came determined to storm the 

 nest of a missel-thrush : the dams defended their man- 

 sion with great vigour, and fought resolutely pro aris et 

 focis; but numbers at last prevailed, they tore the nest 

 to pieces, and swallowed the young alive. 



In the season of nidification the wildest birds are 

 comparatively tame. Thus the ring-dove breeds in my 

 fields, though they are continually frequented ; and the 

 missel-thrush, though most shy and wild in the autumn 

 and winter, builds in my garden close to a walk where 

 people are passing all day long. 



Wall fruit abounds with me this year ; but my grapes, 

 that used to be forward and good, are at present back- 

 ward beyond all precedent: and this is not the worst 

 of the story ; for the same ungenial weather, the same 

 black cold solstice, has injured the more necessary 

 fruits of the earth, and discoloured and blighted our 

 wheat. The crop of hops promises to be very large. 



Frequent returns of deafness incommode me sadly, 

 and half disqualify me for a naturalist ; for, when those 

 fits are upon me I lose all the pleasing notices and little 

 intimations arising from rural sounds; and May is to 

 me as silent and mute with respect to the notes of 

 birds, &c. as August. My eyesight is, thank God, 

 quick and good ; but with respect to the other sense, I 

 am, at times, disabled : 



" Aud Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out." 



