210 



NATURAL HISTORY 



A farmer, near Weyhill, fallows his land with two teams 

 of asses ; one of which works till noon, and the other in the 

 afternoon. When these animals have done their work, 

 they are penned all night, like sheep, on the fallow. In the 

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

 plenty of dung. 



Linnaeus says, that hawks " paciscuntur inducias cum 

 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- thrash 1 is, while breeding, fierce and pugna- 



MISSEL-THRUSH. 



cious, 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 suffers 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 



1 As to the proper mode of spelling the name of this bird, see Pro- 

 fessor Newton's edition of Yarrell's *' History of British Birds," vol. i. 

 p. 260, note. ED. 



