MISSEL THRUSH. 125 



I am assured by Mr. James R. Garrett, that he has several times 

 known one of a pair of missel thrushes to be killed in the breeding 

 season, and in every such instance another mate was soon found 

 to supply the loss. 



The few nests which I have particularly examined, were out- 

 wardly composed of larch or birch twigs and strong grasses ; the 

 interstices being filled up with mosses and jungermannia ; they 

 were lined in the bottom with fine grasses. There was no struc- 

 ture that could, correctly, be designated " a substantial wall of 

 clay" (Architecture of Birds, p. 210). The bottom generally 

 contained a portion of it; but in one nest there was not a 

 particle of clay, nor any other substance that could be used 

 in " masonry." Mr. Poole remarks : — " The nest is not, so far 

 as my experience goes, (nor, it may be added, mine either) at- 

 tached by lichens or anything else to the tree in which it is built. 

 The materials composing it are remarkably heterogeneous; sticks, 

 moss, grass, wool, feathers or shavings ; and once, a portion of 

 a newspaper entered into the composition/' — This gentleman 

 adds, that he has u known this bird to build, successively in the 

 same fork of a tree for several years." The indiscriminate 

 nature of the materials used in the structure of its nest by the 

 missel thrush, has indeed, occasionally, brought against it the 

 charge of pilfering, as in the following instances. 



Some years ago, a lady residing near Ballymena lost in the 

 spring a lace cap winch had been laid on the grass to dry. In 

 the autumn, when the leaves began to fall, something white 

 appeared in one of the trees, and on inspection, proved to be the 

 missing cap, winch had been used by one of these birds in the 

 construction of its nest. 



I had evidence of a similar depredation, but of a minor degree 

 of turpitude, being committed ; a narrow piece of net, a yard in 

 length, which was carried off when bleaching, being afterwards, in 

 my presence, found composing part of a nest. 



Like some others of the genus, the missel-thrush is, in England, 

 noticed only as an early songster ; but, except in the moulting 

 season, its song may occasionally be heard in Ireland at every 



