280 INSECTIVOR.E. 



among the herbage ; and if there be any season more perilous 

 to the thrushes than another, it is that which is excessively 

 dry, at that time when they feed most exclusively upon 

 animals, which are, for the most part, below the ground 

 when the weather is in that state. 



The song of the thrush is unquestionably the finest of any 

 of our permanent woodland songs, and superior in power 

 and clearness, though not in variety, to that of any of the 

 warblers. But the very abundance of it, perhaps, makes it 

 less prized than it should be. The nightingale heard in the 

 depth of groves and during the soft and balmy stillness of 

 the summer's night, may have more of the lusciousness of 

 romance about it, but there is a bold, natural, and free feeling 

 of rustic vigour, enjoyment, and endurance, about the thrush, 

 which gives it a more home and hearty interest in all parts 

 of the country, than can be commanded by any mere bird of 

 passage, whatever may be its charms while it stays. The 

 thrush is, especially, one of the birds of plenty : its blithe 

 and varied song is never heard amid desolation ; and if you 

 hear a thrush, you have not very far to go ere you come to 

 a human dwelling. When its animal food, which it at all 

 times prefers to that which is vegetable, fails, the thrush 

 may commit more devastations among the fruits than many 

 other birds ; but when the snail-shells by the hedge-side are 

 counted, and it is gravely considered how completely these 

 and their broods would have eaten all the early vegetables 

 as they got above ground, and the strawberries and peaches as 

 soon as they began to ripen, it is at least an undetermined 

 question, whether the good done by the thrush may not far 

 more than counterbalance the evil. The creatures on which 

 the thrush feeds are destructive ; they have no song ; and 

 they are at least not more pleasant to look at than thrushes. 



