Thrush and Snail. 149 



completely covered with ivy and creeping flowers. 

 Close by is a thick box-hedge, six feet high and 

 nearly as mnch through, and behind this is a 

 low-thatched tool-honse, where spades, moletraps, 

 scythes, reaping-hooks, and other implements are 

 kept. Here lies a sarsen-stone, hard as iron, about 

 a foot thick, the top of which chances to be smooth 

 and level. This is the thrush's favorite anvil. 



He searches about under the ivy, under which the 

 snails hide in their shells in the heat of the day, and 

 brings them forth into the light. The shell is too 

 large for his beak to hold it pincer-fashion, but at 

 the entrance — the snail's doorway — he can thrust 

 his bill in, and woe then to the miserable occupant ! 

 With a hop and a flutter the thrush mounts the stone 

 anvil, and there destroys his victim in workmanlike 

 style. Up goes his head, lifting the snail high in 

 the air, and then, smash ! the shell comes down on 

 the stone with all the force he can use. About two 

 such blows break the shell, and he then C00II3' chips 

 the fragments oflT as 3'ou might from an egg, and 

 makes ver}^ few mouthfuls of the contents. On the 

 stone and round about it lie the fragments of many 

 such shells — relics of former feasts. Sometimes he 

 will do this close to the bay-window — if all is quiet 

 — using the stone-flags for an anvil, if he chances 

 to find a snail hard by ; but he prefers the recess 

 behind the box-hedge. The thrushes seem half- 

 domesticated here ; thc}^ are tame, too, in the 

 hedges, and will sit and sing on a bough overhead 

 without fear while you wait for a rabbit on the bank 

 beneath. 



