2 2 The Song Thrush. 



disused dairy, was a great resort of thrushes, where they had, 

 so to speak, their stones of sacrifice, around which laj^ heaps of 

 the broken shells of snails, their victims. I have repeatedly 

 watched them at work : hither they brought their snails, and, 

 taking their stand by the stone with the snail in their beak, 

 struck it repeatedly against the stone, till, the shell being 

 smashed, they picked it out as easily as the oyster is taken from 

 its opened shell. This may seem easy work with the slender- 

 shelled snail, but the labour is considerably greater with hard 

 shell-fish. On this subject the intelligent author of " British 

 Birds " says, that many years ago, when in the Isle of Harris, 

 he frequently heard a sharp sound as of one small stone being 

 struck upon another, the cause of which he, for a considerable 

 time, sought for in vain. At length, one day, being in search 

 of birds when the tide was out, he heard the well-known click, 

 and saw a bird standing between two flat stones, moving its 

 head and body alternately up and down, each downward motion 

 being accompanied by the sound which had hitherto been so 

 mysterious. Running up to the spot, he found a thrush, which, 

 flying off, left a whelk, newly-broken, lying amongst fragments 

 of shells lying around the stone. 



Thrushes are remarkably clean and neat with regard to their 

 nests, suffering no litter or impurity to lie about, and in this 

 way are a great example to many untidy people. Their domestic 

 character, too, is excellent, the he-bird now and then taking the 

 place of the hen on the eggs, and, when not doing so, feeding 

 her as she sits. When the young are hatched, the parents may 

 be seen, by those who will watch them silently and patiently, 

 frequently stretching out the wings of the young as if to 



