248 MISTLE THRUSH AND FIELDFARE 



woods, it is only by a liberal use of nets that any reason- 

 able portion of fruit can be saved, as swarms of Black- 

 birds and Thrushes will eat every fruit as it ripens. I 

 provide nesting-places, and thus have my birds so near 

 my caterpillars, and so far from house morsels that they 

 eat the pest greedily ; but fruit crops being thereby 

 secured, we must next draw on our ingenuity to prevent 

 the birds taking more than their fair tithe." 



In winter Blackbirds feed principally on snails, the 

 shells of which they break by raising them in the bill 

 and dashing them against a hard stone, just as Thrushes 

 do. But for these birds, we should be quite unable to 

 save our gardens from the wholesale ravages of those 

 enemies to plant life. 



The Blackbird, of course, belongs to the Thrush 

 family, and its relatives the Fieldfare, the Redwing, 

 and the Mistle Thrush all have the same habits of 

 feeding. They all devour snails, slugs, worms, and 

 insects, and in the autumn take wild berries. The Field- 

 fares are only with us in winter, and they seek their food 

 over the fields and pasture lands in mild weather, and 

 eat the berries when frost comes, and snow covers the 

 ground. The Redwing is a delicate bird, and often 

 comes to grief in our country during a hard winter. 

 The Mistle Thrush is with us all the year, and its food 

 consists, not of mistletoe as used to be supposed, but of 

 the berries of the yew, holly, mountain ash, hawthorn, 

 etc., worms, snails, and insects, and, it must be con- 

 fessed, of a little fruit occasional!^. 



The male bird is pure black, the eyes bordered with a 

 fine golden yellow. The beak is also of this colour. 

 Legs blackish. The female is dark-brown, chin whitish, 



