MISSEL-THRUSH. 



Linnaeus says, that hawks "paciscuntur indu- 

 cias cum avibus, quamdiu cuculus cuculat " but it 

 appears to me, that during that period, many little 

 birds are taken and 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 Welsh 

 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 reso- 

 lutely />ro aris et focis but numbers at last pre- 

 vailed, 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 un- 

 genial 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 



