Birds by Land and Sea 



Moss, without a rag, so to say, to cover them, 

 except the wings of their ill-advised mother. A 

 Cheshire farmer's daughter showed me a missel- 

 thrush's nest (she called the bird a " shellcock ") in 

 the fork of an apple tree no higher than myself. In 

 fine, every one who spends any time among birds 

 knows to use a Hibernianism that the most likely 

 place in which to find a thrush's nest is the least 

 likely, being usually one in which every consideration 

 of safety should have deterred the bird from building. 

 And the bird itself seems to know it. She continues 

 to sit until one could almost touch her, with a help- 

 less appealing look in her soft dark eyes. She is 

 only a common brown thrush, she seems to say, 

 with common blue eggs. She supposes she ought 

 to have built elsewhere ; but where was there to 

 build ? It is hard to understand how any human 

 being can clear a thrush's nest who has paused for 

 a moment to look at the bird itself. 



When the young are out I sometimes amuse 

 myself by making them open their mouths for me, 

 especially if I wish to embellish a picture with those 

 portentous structures. Standing over the nest, I 

 whistle to the flabby, goggle-eyed little monsters 

 sprawling in the bed of the nest, and immediately 

 each skinny neck is extended, and all mouths are set 

 widely agape, to receive the meal to which they 

 evidently believe themselves to be summoned. This 

 method answers with the young of many singing birds. 



If a fairly substantial stone be found near a 

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