of Selborne 163 



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 

 pugnacious, driving such birds as approach its nest, 

 with great fury, to a distance. The Welch call it pen y 

 llwyn^ the head or master of the coppice. He suffers no 

 magpie, 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 garden, 

 that several magpies came determined to storm the nest 

 of a missel-thrush : the dams defended their mansion 

 with great vigour, and fought resolutely /r(? aris &^ fods ; 

 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 backward 

 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, etc., 

 as August. My eyesight is, thank God, quick and good ; 

 but with respect to the other sense, I am, at times, 

 disabled : 



•' And Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out." 



