THE MISSEL-THRUSH. 207 



TURDUS VISCIVORUS. 



THE MISSEL-THRUSH. 



(Plate 8.) 



Turdus major, Briss. Orn. ii. p. 200 (1760). 



Turdus viscivoru?, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 201 (ITliO) ; et auctorum plurimorum — 



Latham, Pallas, Temminck, Nauinann, Bonaparte, Neiotun, Gould, Sharpe, 



Dresser, &c. 

 Sylvia viscivora (Linn.), Savi, Orn. Tosc. i. p. 208 (1827). 

 Ixocossyphus viscivoi'us (Linn.), Kaup, Natiirl. Si/xf. p. 14-j (1820). 

 Morula viacivora (Linn.), Selby, Brit. Orn. i. p. 158 (1833). 



The " Stormcock/' as this bird is popularly called, is one of those few 

 species which, during the progress of very recent times, has extended its 

 range in the British Islands. This extension has taken a northerly direction, 

 and may be attributed to a variety of causes — tree-planting and the laying- 

 out of shrubberies and pleasure-grounds being possibly the chief encourage- 

 ment. So far as tlie earlier history of the Missel-Thrush has been recorded, 

 the bird was an inhabitant of the sheltered places, the pastoral districts of 

 the lowlands; but from them it has gradually spread itself over more 

 isolated and northerly plantations, woods, and coppices, up to the moor- 

 land wastes. It may now be said to be a common bird in most sufficiently 

 wooded localities throughout Great Britain and Ireland, becoming rather 

 more local and rarer in the extreme north. The Missel-Thrush has 

 gradually spread itself over the Western Isles of Scotland. In Skye 

 Missel-Thrushes were fairly numerous up to the severe winter of 1879-80, 

 since which time the birds have almost entirely disappeared again. Dixon 

 during his stay in the season of 1881 found one nest of this bird on the 

 wooded banks of a burn ; but now the bird is certainly a rare one there. 

 Upon the Orkneys it is sometimes found after easterly gales — birds most 

 probably blown out of their course during migration ; but it has not yet 

 been recorded from Shetland. Upon the European continent the Missel- 

 Thrush breeds thronghout the temperate portions, extending on the west 

 coast as far north as the Arctic circle. Eastwards it ranges through 

 Turkestan to the North-west Himalayas and Lake Baikal. In many of 

 the milder portions of its haunts the bird is resident, or is subject to in- 

 ternal migration from the hills to the valleys ; but by far the greater 

 number winter in Southern Europe and North Africa, a few birds remain- 

 ing to breed in the former locality, the Siberian birds wintering in South 

 Persia, and the Indian ones seeking the lower valleys and sheltered districts 

 at that season. 



