288 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



living in such close community. And yet, if a pair offer to 

 build on a single tree, the nest is plundered and demolished 

 at once. Some rooks roost on their nest-trees. The twigs 

 which the rooks drop in building, supply the poor with brush- 

 wood to light their fires. Some unhappy pairs are not per- 

 mitted to finish any nests till the rest have completed their 

 building. As soon as they get a few sticks together, a party 

 comes and demolishes the whole. As soon as rooks have 

 finished their nests, and before they lay, the cocks begin to 

 feed the hens, who receive their bounty with a "fondling, tre- 

 mulous voice, and fluttering wings, and all the little blandish- 

 ments that are expressed by the young, while in a helpless 

 state. This gallant deportment of the male is continued 

 through the whole season of incubation. These birds do not 

 copulate on trees, nor in their nests, but on the ground in the 

 open fields.* 



THRUSHES. Thrushes, during long droughts, are of great 

 service in hunting out shell snails, which they pull in pieces 

 for their young, and are thereby very serviceable in gardens, -j- 

 Missel thrushes do not destroy the fruit in gardens like the 

 other species of turdi, but feed on the berries of misseltoe, 



* After the first brood of rooks are sufficiently fledged, they all leave 

 their nest-trees in the day time, and resort to some distant place in search 

 of food, but return regularly every evening, in vast flights, to their 

 nest-trees, where, after flying round several times, with much noise 

 and clamour, till they are all assembled together, they take up their abode 

 for the night. MARKWICK. 



f- We are aware that thrushes feed on snail shells, but think it more 

 likely that they will find them in moist than in dry weather, at which 

 time they generally conceal themselves in holes. 



In the neighbourhood of Pitlessie, in Fife, a pair of thrushes built 

 their nest in a cart-shed, while four wheelwrights were engaged in it as 

 a work-shop. It was placed between one of the hulls of the harrow and 

 the adjoining tooth. The men were busily employed at the noiseful 

 work of joining wood all the day, yet these birds flew in and out at the 

 door of the shed, without fear or dread, and finished their nest with 

 mortar. On the second day, the hen laid an egg, on which she sat, and 

 was occasionally relieved by the cock. In thirteen days the birds came 

 out of the shells, which the old ones always carried off. They fed their 

 young with shell-snails, such as those of the helex nemoralis^ H. arbus- 

 torum, and H. aspersa, as also butterflies and moths. The nest was 

 robbed one Sunday, in the absence of the millwrights. 



Mr E. H. Greenhow, of North Shields, mentions a similar occurrence 

 which came under his own observation, at Whitby. This nest was also 

 built in i shed, at a public place ED. 



