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searching for food along a wall, the base of which was clear, I followed it slowly over a space of 

 about two hundred yards, without its seeming in the least alarmed ; for it allowed me at times to 

 approach within six paces. On this occasion, and on others, I have observed that just before 

 rising to fly it runs a few steps, and does the same after alighting, although its ordinary mode of 

 progression is by leaps. 



" Song-Thrushes are sometimes seen in the markets, along with Fieldfares and Blackbirds. 

 In the beginning of winter, when they feed on snails and worms, they are very fat and sapid, as 

 well as savoury. Besides man, their principal enemies are the smaller Hawks ; I have several 

 times seen a Thrush take refuge in a house when pursued by a Merlin or Sparrow-Hawk. 



" The full song of this species is heard in April, May, and June, although, as I have already 

 said, it may be occasionally heard at any season. In March it pairs, and by the end of that 

 month, or in the beginning of the next, begins to construct its nest, which is placed in a thick 

 bush of any kind, or in a hedge at a small height, or on a rough bank amongst shrubs or moss. 

 In the unwooded parts of the country it is found under shelter of a projecting stone or crag, in 

 the crevice of a rock, or at the root of a tuft of heath, or among the stunted willows on the 

 rocky bank of a stream. It is composed externally of slender twigs, roots, grass, and moss, and 

 ^ lined with a thin layer of mud, cow-dung, or rotten wood, neatly laid on, and between which 

 and the eggs no other substance is interposed. The diameter of the cavity is usually about four 

 inches, its depth from two and a half to four. As a good deal of wrangling has taken place on 

 the subject of Thrush's nests, I may be allowed to be somewhat particular in this matter. 



" Although the structure of the nest does not vary much, the materials are very diversified. 

 In a nest before me, which is very bulky, the exterior is formed of the long tough roots of 

 various plants, a twig oiRumex crispus or B. latifolius, another of the rasp, a clipping of box-wood, 

 ;i piece of pack-thread, numerous tufts of Poa annua and Stella/rid media, two or three mosses, and 

 some other substances. Within this is a more elaborate structure of fibrous roots, tufts of grasses, 

 straws, and some beech leaves, interwoven, and compacted with some tenacious substance. This 

 inner cup is lined or plastered with a very thin but firm coating of what seems to be horse-dung, 

 on the surface of which are spread numerous chips of straw and slender grasses, but certainly no 

 decayed wood, as some allege to be usually the case. This nest is in diameter three inches and 

 a half, in depth two and a half, its greatest diameter seven inches, and its greatest depth four 

 and a half. This is the nest of a civilized Thrush, it having been found in a hedge in the imme- 

 diate vicinity of Modern Athens. 



"On the 5th of May 1836, I found in a honeysuckle-bush in a wood between Haddington 

 and Giffoid the nest of a Thrush, in which the bird was working at the time, completing its 

 interior, in which was a piece of wet rotten wood, quite soft and friable, which it was applying 

 to the walls. Another nest found near Gifford was plastered with horse-dung. One brought to 

 me from Melville woods, on the 3rd of May 1837, by my son, who found in it five eggs, is com- 

 posed externally of twigs, straws, and stems of herbaceous plants, its inner cup of a few slender 

 twigs of trees, stems and leaves of grasses, oak-leaves, and a large proportion of mosses, inter- 

 woven and agglutinated, but without mud. The lining, which is not thicker than two twelfths 

 of an inch at most, is certainly composed entirely of fragments of rotten wood and other vegetable 

 substances, without any mud, clay, or dung. Its internal diameter at the mouth is three inches 



