THE SONG THRUSH 



TURDUS MUSICUS 



LOCAL names in surrounding counties : " Mavis " 

 (Essex). 



STATUS IN BRITISH AVIFAUNA : A common and widely 

 distributed resident, subject to some local migration, and 

 its numbers perceptibly increased in autumn in certain 

 districts. 



RADIAL DISTRIBUTION WITHIN FIFTEEN MILES OF ST. 

 PAUL'S : The present species is unquestionably the 

 commonest and most generally dispersed Metropolitan 

 Thrush. From the two-mile radius, which includes 

 part of the Green Park and the whole of St. James's Park, 

 the Song Thrush may be found in numbers that only vary 

 in response to the suitability of its haunt. To give its 

 distribution in detail here would require a page or more 

 merely to list the names of almost every open space 

 sufficiently covered with trees and undergrowth to afford 

 it cover. There are few places it frequents in which it 

 does not habitually nest, and I have often remarked its 

 home in some evergreen tree in the most frequented 

 spots. As the suburban circle widens the Song Thrush 

 increases in numbers. It is a bird that Londoners 

 should dearly prize, for it voices in unstinted abundance 

 one of the sweetest and the most charming echoes of the 

 countryside. I have stood in Trafalgar Square in the 

 quiet of a springtide dawn listening enthralled to the 

 varied notes of this loud-songed chorister, wafted over 

 the grimy roofs of Spring Gardens from the plane-trees 

 in St. James's Park. In a few hours the roar of the traffic 

 conceals the music, but the song goes on just the same 

 the livelong day. 



Town life has modified the habits of the Song Thrush 

 but little ; and it is this fact that renders the bird's 



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