322 



OBSERVATIONS ON 



THRUSHES. 



THEUSHES during long droughts are of great service in 

 hunting out shell snails, which they pull in pieces for their 

 young, and are thereby very serviceable in gardens. Missel 

 thrushes do not destroy the fruit in gardens like the other 

 species of Turdi, but feed on the berries of misletoe, and in 

 the spring on ivy berries, which then begin to ripen. In 

 the summer, when their young become fledged, they leave 

 neighbourhoods, and retire to sheep-walks and wild com- 

 mons. 



MAGPIE. 



The magpies, when they have young, destroy the broods 

 of missel thrushes ; though the dams are fierce birds, and 

 fight boldly in defence of their nests. It is probably to 

 avoid such insults, that this species of thrush, though wild 



of food, but return regularly every evening, in vast flights, to their nest 

 trees, where, after flying round several times with much noise and cla- 

 mour, till they are all assembled together, they take up their abode for 

 the night. MARKWJCK. 



See Letter LIX. to Daines Barrington, p. 296. ED. 



