Class II, MISSEL-THRUSH. 403 



toe berries, which are the food of all the thrush 

 kind : in severe snowy weather, when there is 

 a failure of their usual diet, they are observed 

 to scratch out of the banks of hedges, the root 

 of Arum, or the cuckoo pint : this is remarkably 

 warm and pungent, and a provision suitable to 

 the season. 



This bird migrates into Burgundy in the 

 months of October and November: in Great 

 Britain, it continues the whole year. The 

 Welsh call it Pen y llzvyn, or the master of the 

 coppice, as it will drive all the lesser species of 

 thrushes from it. The antients believed that 

 the misseltoe (the basis of bird-lime) could not 

 be propagated but by the berries that had past 

 through the body of this bird ; and on that is 

 founded the proverb of Turdus malum sibi 

 cacat. 



It may be observed, that this is the largest 

 bird, British or foreign (within our knowledge) 

 that sings or has any melody in its note : the 

 notes of all of a superior size, being either 

 screaming, croaking, or chattering, the pigeon 

 kind excepted, whose slow plaintive continued 

 monotone has something sweetly soothing in it. 

 Thomson (the naturalist's poet) in the concert 

 he has formed among the feathered tribe, allows 

 the imperfection of voice ia the larger birds, yet 



9 d <i 



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