Habits of the Thrush. -2^7 



more to be regretted, 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 (Turdus musictts). — In the course of 

 last August, travelling on the coach to Edinburgh, I met, as 

 a fellow-passenger, a very sensible man, whom I discovered to 

 be a master millwright from Fife. After much desultory con- 

 versation, we came to 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 chooses 

 for constructing its nest, my companion asked if I had ever 

 observed any of them make their nest within a house ; and 

 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 

 in a cart-shed, which they had used for some time as their 

 workshop ; and one morning they observed a mavis enter the 

 wide door of the shed, over their 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 ish and entry. Upon the joists 

 of the shed were placed, along with some timber for agricul- 

 tural purposes and old implements, two small harrows 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 built 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 screich 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 well 

 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 egg] and this she had 

 been compelled to do some time before the nest was finished ; 



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