THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



251 



THRUSH. 



(T URDUS MUSIC US) L. 



Order, Passeris ; Family, Turdidse. 



Also called " Song Thrush," "Throstle," and 

 "Mavis." 



By J. H. Flower. 



This bird is one of our most numerous 

 songsters, and is very frequently met with in 

 our fields, meadows, and gardens, sometimes 

 perched upon the summit of a lofty tree, 

 uttering forth its melodious strains of joy. 

 Almost everyone must have heard its most 

 delightful song at day dawn, and also in the 

 evening you may hear the woods reverberate 

 with jts jovial song. This bird can be marked 

 amongst our feathered musicians, for its song 

 cannot be excelled excepting by very few 

 birds. The thrush begins to sing about the 

 latter end of January, or the beginning of 

 February, and after a few weeks have 

 elapsed, it pairs, and then commences its 

 work of nidification. I must also add that 

 this bird is quite common in the Midland 

 counties ; in fact, I may say all over England, 

 as well as most countries of Europe, Egypt, 

 &c. It is also a very hardy bird, which is 

 shown by its being one of the earliest builders. 

 Its nest is generally found in our hedges, or 

 thick bushes, or in some small tree, 

 which is encircled with ivy. The nest is 

 constructed externally of small twigs, and 

 then follow several layers of dried grass and 

 moss, and other materials of the same descrip- 

 tion, and after that a covering of rotten wood, 

 held together by mud, and. finally coated 

 with a thick layer of cow dung, which when 

 dry composes a very tough and warm nest. 

 The thrush's nest is very tastefully described 

 by Clare : — 



" Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush, 

 That overhung a mole-hill large and round, 

 I heard, from morn to morn, a merry thrush 



Sing hymns to sunrise, while I drank the sound 

 With joy ; and often an intruding guest, 

 I watched her secret toils, from day to day. 



How true she warped the moss to form her nest, 

 And modelled it within with wood and clay. 

 And by and bye, like heath bells gilt with dew,' 

 Therelay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers, 

 Ink-sp®tted over shells of green and blue, 



And there I witnessed in the summer hours 

 A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly , 



Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky." 

 It lays from five to six eggs, which are of a pale 

 blue, and very sparingly spotted, with small 

 black spots. The food of the thrush consists 

 chiefly of snails, slugs, and small worms, and it 

 is also rather fond of fruit, especially cherries. 

 The thrush's mode of breaking the snail shells, 

 is by dashing them against a stone, and then 

 it will devour the contents of the shell with 

 the greatest avidity. I have frequently seen 

 heaps of shells where the thrush is in the 

 habit of carrying the snails to kill them. The 

 thrush is about nine inches long, the head, 

 back, tail, ahd wings are of a dark olive 

 brown, throat and breast of different shades' 

 of yellow and white, and densely spotted with 

 black irregularly shaped spots. It is too' 

 common to need a more detailed description. 



A FEW WORDS ABOUT 

 GEOLOGY. 



By C. H. H. Walker, Liverpool. 

 Continued from page 248. 



In the older rocks we find very few fossils, 

 and these are all of animals very low in the 

 scale of life. Geological evidence leaves no 

 doubt that the lower animals were created 

 before the higher. On this is based the theory 

 of evolution, which teaches that the higher 

 animals were developed from the lower. The 

 old rocks are highly metamorphosed, having 

 undergone considerable change of form since 

 they were first deposited. 



The oldest of :hese formations goes under' 

 the name of the Laurentian series (so called' 

 ifrom their abundance near the Canadian river 

 St. Lawrence), and are stratified. That they 



