148 THE THRUSH. 



various aptitudes and comprehensions, sensibility or in- 

 attention to sounds, &c., it seems but reasonable to 

 consider them as gifted with latent passions ; though 

 being devoid of mind to stimulate or call them into ac- 

 tion by any principle of volition or virtue, how excited 

 to performance we know no more than we do the 

 motives of many of their bodily actions! The kind- 

 nesses and attentions which the maternal creature mani- 

 fests in rearing its young, and the assistance occasion- 

 ally afforded by the paternal animal, during the same 

 period, appears to be a natural inherent principle uni- 

 versally diffused throughout creation ; but when we see 

 a sick or maimed animal supplied and attended by an- 

 other, which we suppose gifted with none of the stimuli 

 to exertion that actuate our conduct, we endow them by 

 this denial with motives with which we ourselves are 

 unacquainted ; and at last we can only relate the fact, 

 without defining the cause. 



The throstle is a bird of great utility in a garden 

 where wall-fruit is grown, by reason of the peculiar 

 inclination which it has for feeding upon snails, and 

 very many of them he does dislodge in the course of 

 the day. When the female is sitting, the male bird 

 seems to be particularly assiduous in searching them 

 out, and I believe he feeds his mate during that period, 

 having frequently seen him flying to the nest with food, 

 long before the eggs were hatched ; after this time the 

 united labors of the pair destroy numbers of these in- 

 jurious creatures. That he will regale himself fre- 

 quently with a tempting gooseberry, or bunch of cur- 

 rants, is well known, but his services entitle him to a 

 very ample reward. The blackbird associates with these 

 thrushes in our gardens, but makes no compensation for 

 our indulgences after his song ceases, as he does not 

 feed upon the snail ; but the thrush benefits us through 

 the year by his propensities for this particular food, 

 and every grove resounds with his harmony in the 

 season; and probably if this race suffered less from 

 the gun of the Christmas popper, the gardener might 

 find much benefit in his ensuing crop of fruit, from 'he 

 forbearance. 



