MOORLAND IDYLLS. 



will get no protection from a canopy of 

 foliage, conceal their homes adroitly with an 

 outer coat of woven moss and lichen, which 

 so harmonizes with the grey and lichen- 

 covered branches around them as to make 

 them almost indistinguishable. The eggs 

 are stone-grey, daintily spotted and blotched 

 with round blobs of brown ochre. 



But by far the most interesting point about 

 the missel-thrush is that curious connection 

 between the bird and the mistletoe which 

 was observed so long since even by our 

 prehistoric ancestors as to have given the 

 species its vernacular name in all European 

 languages. Turdus viscivorzis the mistletoe- 

 eating thrush is Linnaeus's scientific Latin 

 title for the creature, and he well deserves it. 

 He is almost or altogether the only bird that 

 will eat the mistletoe berries, and on him 

 accordingly the mistletoe depends for the 

 dispersal of its seeds and the propagation 

 of its mystic parasitic seedlings. The berries 

 themselves are very " viscid," as we say 



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