182 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



the winter they are confined and foddered in a yard, and 

 make plenty of dung. 



Linnseus says that hawks " paciscuntur inducia scum 

 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 pug- 

 nacious, 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 suflfers 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 resolutely pro aris et focis; but numbers at last 

 prevailed, they tore the nest to pieces, and swallowed the 

 young alive. 



In the season of nidification the wildest birds are com- 

 paratively 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 ray 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 ungenial 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. 



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