' The Song Thrush builds a nest quite unlike that of any other British bird." 



THE SONG THRUSH 



T 



HIS sober-coloured bird is one 

 of the best known and 

 most widely appreciated 

 feathered vocalists inhabit- 

 ing the British Islands. 

 It sings for practically 

 eleven months in the year, 

 and at the height of the 

 season the late Mr. Witchel recorded 

 one bird thus engaged for no less than 

 sixteen hours during a single day. It 

 will pour forth its vehemently cheerful 

 song from the top of a tall tree, a lowly 

 bush, a cabbage, or even the bare ground, 

 and may occasionally be heard whilst it 

 is on the wing. A friend of mine was 

 listening to a Throstle as the bird is 



called in the North of England in full 

 song in a tree over his head one day, 

 when, to his great surprise, the unfor- 

 tunate creature suddenly stopped and 

 fell dead at his feet ; over-exertion 

 had probably ruptured some important 

 blood-vessel. 



In the summer of 1909 a pair of these 

 birds reared a brood of young ones in 

 a laurel close to the back door of my 

 house, and I noticed that the male fre- 

 quently took up his station on the top 

 of a rustic arch and sang between his 

 journeyings after food for the young. 

 Another curious thing was that he always 

 entered the nesting bush from one side, 

 and his mate from the other. 



