MEKULID.E. 63 



stantly returns to the same stone for this purpose ; 

 but, on the contrary, I imagine it goes to the 

 nearest stone well suited to its purpose, for I have 

 occasionally found so many of these stones within 

 such a very short distance of each other that they 

 must have exceeded the number of Thrushes in 

 the locality. On one occasion, for instance, in the 

 island of Herm, near Guernsey, where the number 

 of Thrushes is limited, I found within a very short 

 distance such an immense number of stones that 

 had been used for this purpose, that I am sure each 

 bird, as he caught a snail, must have rushed to the 

 nearest stone to break it. In this dry summer 

 (1868) the number of snails destroyed by this 

 bird and the Blackbird has been perfectly incal- 

 culable. 



Various sorts of berries and (in the summer) fruit 

 form part of the food of the Thrush, from which 

 latter circumstance arises the enmity of the gar- 

 dener, who seldom gives credit for the number of 

 snails which fall victims to the Thrush, and the 

 amount of damage the snails would have done to 

 his garden without this useful ally. Whenever I 

 have mentioned this to any gardener, the answer 

 always is, " It would be much better to kill the 

 Thrushes and pay" (which means let his master 

 pay) " boys to pick off the snails." Which would be 

 most profitable to the master, I leave the reader to 

 judge. 



