•^36 HISTOUY OF 



hering as far as the fust joint of the middle toe. To this tiilie 

 may be also added the stare or starling, which, though with a 

 flat bill, too much resembles these birds to be placed any where 

 else. 



H.filicinum), or any other which is sufficiently tuft<>d. As the Btructure 

 advances, the tufts of moss are brought into a rounded wall by meaus of 

 grass stems, wheat-straw, or root, which are twined with it and with one an. 

 other up to the brim of the cup, where a thicker baud of the same materials 

 is hooped round like the mouth of a basket. The rounded form of this 

 frame-work is produced by the bird measuring it, at every step of the pro- 

 cess, with its body, particularly the part extending from the thigh to the 

 chin ; and when any of the straws or other materials will not readily 

 conform to this gauge, they are carefully glued into their proper place by 

 means of saliva,— a circumstance which may be seen in many parts of the 

 same nest if carefully examined. When the shell, or frame, as it may be 

 called, is completed in this manner, the bird begins the interior masonry by 

 spreading pellets of horse or cow dung on the basket work of moss and 

 straw, beginning at the bottom, which is intended to be the thickest, and 

 proceeding gradually from the central point. This material, however, is 

 too dry to adhere of itself with sufficient firmness to the moss, and on this 

 account it is always laid on with the saliva of the bird as a cement ; yet it 

 must require no little patience in the little architect to lay it on so very 

 smoothly, with no other implement besides its narrow pointed bill. It 

 would indeed puzzle any of our best workmen to work so uniformly 

 smooth with such a tool; but from the frame being nicely prepared, and 

 by using only small pellets at a time, which are spread out with the upper 

 part of the bill, the work is rendered somewhat easier. 



This wall being finished, the birds employ for the inner coating little short 

 Elips of rotten wood, chiefly that of the willow ; and these are firmly glued 

 on with the same salivary cement, while they are bruised flat at the same 

 time, so as to correspond with the smoothness of the surface over which 

 they are laid. This final coating, however, is seldom extended so high as 

 the first, and neither of them are carried quite to the brim of the nest, the 

 birds tliinking it enough to bring their masonry near to the twisted band 

 of grass, which forms the mouth. The whole wall, when finished, is not 

 much thicker than pasteboard, and though hard, tough, and water-tight, is 

 more warm and comfortable than at first view might appear, and admirably 

 calculated for protecting the eggs or young from the bleak winds which pre- 

 vail in the early pai't of the spring, when the song-thrush breeds. 



The song-thrush usually builds in a thick bush, hawthorn, holly, silver- 

 fir, furze, ivied tree, or sometimes in a dead fence, where the grass grows 

 liigh ; but it has occasionally been knorni to nestle within out-buildings. 

 One is mentioned in the Magazine of Natural History, as having been built 

 upon a harrow. A mill-wTight " had been making a threshing-machine for 

 a farmer in the neighbourhood of Pitlessie, in Fife, and had three of his mea 

 along with him. They \\Tought in a cart-shed, which they had used for some 

 time as their workshop ; and one morning they observed a mavis (thrush) 

 enter the wide door of the shed, over their heads, and fly out again after a 

 si.ort while ; and tliis she did two or three times, until their curiosity was 



