igS THE BOOK OF BIRDS 



dently reasoned that the man who rescued her young one 

 the day before would do so again if he could be called out." 



The Thrush is one of the birds that stay with us all the 

 year round. If some members of his clan fly southward 

 across the sea when autumn comes, it is equally certain 

 that many others cross over from the Continent and spend 

 the colder" months in these islands. Perhaps with the 

 excejDtion of the Shetlands, the whole of the British Islands 

 know the speckled breast and loud clear song of the 

 Thrush — the Mavis, as he is called in the north. 



Do you know Robert Browning's little poem — the one 

 in which he tells how he longed to be in England, when he 

 was abroad and April had come? It has only eighteen 

 lines, and six of them are about this bird — the Throstle, 

 as so many of our poets have called him. 



" Hark, where niy blossomed pear-tree ia the hedge 

 Leans to the field and scatters on the clover 

 Blossoms and dew-drops — at the bent spray's edge — 

 That's the wise thrush : he sings each song twice over 

 Lest you should think he never could recapture 

 The first fine careless rapture ! " 



Many attempts have been made to put the Thrush's song 

 into words, but though some of these renderings are clever 

 enough, the bold singer himself must give us the music if 

 we are to have any notion of its richness and power. 



The Throstle is not the only Thrush — not even the 

 only one who stays in our island all the year round. 

 He has a cousin not unlike him in general colouring, the 

 Missel or Mistle Thrush, who gets his name from one of 

 the many kinds of berries of which lie is fond — that of 

 the mistletoe. 



He builds even earlier than the Song Thrush — as early 

 as February sometimes. And this is quite in keeping with 



