132 Merulidce. 



desolate forests during the calm and light nights of the for 

 north.* Notwithstanding this, our Song Thrushes are unmerci- 

 fully persecuted by the gardener, being insatiable devourers of 

 fruit, and they so provoke his malice that in his rage and thirst 

 for revenge he overlooks the benefit they have conferred upon 

 him all the rest of the year by the destruction of thousands of 

 worms and insects. Moreover, the songs with which they enliven 

 our shrubberies and gardens from early spring to the end of the 

 summer, and such songs too, ought to plead something in their 

 favour. They are great adepts at cracking snail-shells against a 

 stone, to enable them to get at the contents, which they appear 

 to relish above all things, and they return to the same stone 

 which they have found to answer their purpose, so that broken 

 shells scattered all around mark where they have been dining ; 

 and here, methinks, they unmistakably prove themselves the 

 gardener's friend in a way which cannot be disputed. But all 

 these benefits are forgotten when the fruit is ripe, and they crave 

 a share as their just portion. The old English name ' Throstle ' 

 is doubtless from the German Drossel, and perhaps Mavis, by 

 which it was also known of old, from the Spanish Malvis; c r 

 perhaps both derived from some older and forgotten word. 



35. REDWING (Turdus iliacus). 



Like its congener and companion the fieldfare, this bird 

 visits us in the autumn, when the snows of its native country 

 in the north render its home untenable and force it south- 

 wards. It arrives a few weeks before the fieldfares, but after- 

 wards associates with those birds in flocks, when its smaller 

 size and the conspicuous red of the under wing-coverts cause 

 it to be easily distinguished. Though seldom heard in this 

 country, it has a most melodious note, which is so highly prized 

 in the north as to have procured for this bird the title of 

 the ' Swedish Nightingale,' a title since usurped by the famous 

 Jenny Lind. This fact of the surpassing powers of song of the 

 redwing may probably be unknown to many, and seeing it only 

 Lloyd's 'Scandinavian Adventures/ vol. ii., p. 288. 



