MAY. 75 



of danger, and the excitement of preparing for a 

 second brood, no wonder that so many thrushes on 

 our lawns behave at this season as if they were 

 distraught. 



NEST ROBBERS. 



Luckily for the missel thrushes, the hoodie crows 

 managed to get away with the same favourable wind 

 that brought the sand-martins and swallows, the 

 nightingales and whitethroats ; for with all his alert- 

 ness and pugnacity, the missel thrush, nesting in 

 conspicuous places, has a hard time when he has to 

 defend his eggs and young from the hoodie crows. 

 The plovers must gain equally by the absence of the 

 hoodie crows, but they have still a pestilent enemy in 

 the gull. Although the mature gulls have departed 

 to their breeding-places, the younger birds,', both of 

 herring and common gulls, have remained on the 

 coast fields. These birds do not get their adult 

 plumage of grey, black, and white until they are 

 three years old, nor do they breed till then. So they 

 are free to remain loafing over the fields in search of 

 eggs or any kind of helpless prey. Although their 

 feathers, mottled with brown, betray their youth, they 

 are as keen-eyed and sharp-beaked as their seniors ; 

 and the plover nesting in exposed, open places on 

 the bare earth has reason to dread the approach of 

 these sea pirates, who know as well as Leadenhall 

 Market the excellence of plovers' eggs. 



