THE ROCK-THRUSH. 283 



on the small patches of grassy land near streams, seeking for earthworms 

 and snails. Amongst these mountain haunts the bird's fare is a bountiful 

 one. The quantity of insect-life is something wonderful. Grasshoppers 

 of nearly every conceivable shape and variety of size and colour vie with 

 the birds in loudness if not in melody of song ; butterflies, both rich and 

 beautiful, float lazily about ; and the ground and rocks around are alive 

 with beetles and other forms of insect-life almost endless in variety, and 

 whose dreamy hum is, in the noon-day heat, almost the only sign of life in 

 these mountain solitudes. The Rock-Thrush is not content with picking 

 his food from the ground or rocks, but often pursues it in the air like 

 the Flycatcher. You see him perched so quietly on a rocky boulder, 

 in a mood of seeming indolence ; yet he is ever on the alert j and his sharp 

 eye is scanning the insects around him. Suddenly he launches into the 

 air, and, after a short fluttering butterfly-kind of flight, he snaps at a 

 passing fly and again returns to his perching-place, or goes off to his nest 

 should his young be already hatched. In the late summer months these 

 birds eat the berries of the various shrubs in their haunts, and sometimes 

 visit the gardens for the fruit. But this kind of fare is not sought to a 

 very great extent, the Rock-Thrush being almost as insectivorous as the 

 Chats and Redstarts. 



As soon as the birds arrive in their summer home their song com- 

 mences. In the early morning, during the season of courtship, it may, 

 perhaps, be listened to with the greatest advantage. The bird usually 

 sings from some rocky perch, sometimes from the old walls of ruins, 

 or, more rarely, on the topmost branch of some lonely tree. But he 

 does not always sing when at rest. Like the Redstart, he will ever and 

 anon rise into the air and descend with wings expanded upon his perch 

 again, singing all the time. Sometimes these peculiar aerial motions are 

 continued several times in succession before the bird alights. The song 

 of the Rock-Thrush is, indeed, a sweet and varied one ; and in those 

 countries it frequents the bird is in the highest "request as a cage -songster, 

 sometimes the most fabulous prices being paid for birds whose musical 

 powers are beyond the ordinary degree of sweetness and variation. Its 

 wild powerful song is equal to that of the Blackcap, and, for variety and 

 tone, comes little short of the ever-changing notes of the " Throstle/' and 

 the rich flute-like warblings of the Blackbird. Its call-note is a peculiar 

 piping cry, somewhat similar to tbat of the Ring-Ouzel. 



The nest of the Rock-Thrush, from the peculiar nature of its site, is 

 one of the most difficult to discover. You may search for hours, and turn 

 over tons of rock and stones unsuccessfully, and at last owe its discovery 

 to mere accident. It is usually placed in some convenient rock-crevice, at 

 various heights, sometimes under a mass of rock lying on the ground, 

 sometimes in heaps of stones, and sometimes in holes of ruined buildings ; 



