196 THE BOOK OF BIRDS 



place. In the spring of 1908, on a railway in Lancashire, 

 one of these birds chose the platform of a signal-post at a 

 noisy level-crossing. Between early morning and mid- 

 night some two hundred trains rattled past, and seventy 

 on a Sunday ; and — still more disturbing — a man had to 

 climb up on to the platform twice a day. Yet, despite all 

 these alarms, the plucky mother-bird hatched and reared 

 five young ones with complete success. All the railway- 

 men knew of the nest, and made it a point of honour not 

 to molest the little family. 



"It is a pretty sight," says Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, " to 

 see an old Thrush teaching one of its brood to pick up a 

 worm. Having drawn the latter from the grass and 

 broken it up so that there is no fear of its crawling away, 

 the old bird places it before the young one, and pecks at 

 the worm to show the latter how to take it up for itself. 

 Then it taps the bill of the youngster and lays the worm 

 again in front of it, till the little one begins to feed itself" 



It is a common thing for a pair of Thrushes to rear 

 two or even three broods in one season. The nestlings are 

 very quaint, ugly little birds with large heads. I shall 

 never forget, as a boy, first looking into a Thrush's nest in 

 a bush on Hayes Common, Kent. Knowing the beauty 

 of the adult bird, I was not prepared for the skinny little 

 creatures with half-open eyes and gaping mouths, which 

 lay crowded together in the nest. 



Happily, that is not the view taken of their helpless 

 little ones by the parent Thrushes. Their love and care 

 are well known. Occasionally that love leads them to do 

 things which seem to show something almost like reason- 

 ing power. 



Some ten or eleven years ago I read in the correspond- 

 ence columns of the Spectator, an account of a pretty 



