Habits of the Thrush. 237 
gretted, as I can hardly conceive any person 
having the firmness to kill one of these rare and beautiful 
little creatures on purpose. 
Habits of the Thrush (Virdus musicus). — In the course of 
last August, travelling on the coach to Edinburgh, I met, as 
a fellow- -passenger, a very sensible man, whom I discov ered to 
be a master millwright from Fife. After much desultory con- 
versation, we came te remark the great increase of thrushes 
and blackbirds all over the country, and their cruel depreda- 
tions on gardens. Having noticed the singular tameness o. 
the thrush, particularly in the odd places it sometimes Pie 
for constructing its nest, my companion asked if I had eve 
observed any of them make their nest within a house ; id 
added that he once saw such an instance, and came to be 
greatly interested by it. He had been making a threshing- 
machine for a farmer in the neighbourhood of Pitlessie, in 
Fife, and had three of his men along with him, ‘They wrought 
ina cart-shed, which they had used for some time as their 
workshop ; ane one morning they observed a mav7s enter the 
wide door of the shed, over ee heads, and fly out again after 
a short while; and this she did two or three times, until their 
curiosity was excited to watch the motions of the birds more 
narrowly ; for they began to suspect that the male and female 
were both implicated in this zsh and entry. Upon the joists 
of the shed were placed, along with some timber for agricul- 
tural purposes and old implements, two small hirrows used 
for grass seeds, laid one above the other; and they were soon 
aware that their new companions were employed, with all the 
diligence of their kind, in making their nest in this singular 
situation: They had pale it, he said, between one of the ‘bulls 
of the harrow and the adjoining tooth ; and by that time, about 
seven o’clock, and an hour after he and his lads had com- 
menced their work, the birds had made such progress, that 
they must have begun by the scretch of day. Of course, he 
did not fail to remark the future proceedings of his new friends. 
Their activity was incessant; and he noticed that they began 
to carry mortar (he said), which he and his companions w vell 
knew was for plastering the inside. Late in the same after- 
noon, and at six o’clock next morning, when the lads and he 
entered the shed, the first thing they did was to look at the 
mavis’s nest, which they were surprised to find occupied by 
one of the birds, while the other plied its unwearied toil. At 
last the sitting bird, or hen as they now called her, left the 
nest likewise ; and he ordered one of the ’prentices to climb the 
baulks, who called out that she had laid an eg@; and this she had 
been compelled to do some time before the nest was finished ; 
rn 3 
more to be reg 
