Lxin.] 
OF SELBORNE. 
185 
A farmer near Weyhill fallows his land with two teams of 
asses ; one of which works till noon, and the other in the after- 
noon. When these animals have done their work, they are 
penned all night, like sheep, on the fallow. In the winter 
they are confined and foddered in a yard, and make plenty 
of dung. 
Linnaeus says that hawks " make a truce with other birds 
as long as the cuckoo is heard : " , " paciscuntur inducias cum 
avibus, quamdiu cuculus cuculat : " but it appears to me that, 
during that period, many little birds are taken and destroyed 
magpik'^ 
by birds of prey, as may be seen by their feathers left in lanes 
and under hedges. 
The missel-thrush is, while breeding, fierce and pugnacious, 
driving such birds as approach its nest with great fury to a 
distance. The AYelsh call it " pen y llwynn," the head or 
master of the coppice. He suffers no magpie, jay, or black- 
bird to enter the garden where he haunts ; and is, for the time, 
a good guard to the new-sown legumens. In general he is very 
successful in the defence of his family ; but once I observed in 
my garden, that several magpies came determined to storm the 
nest of a missel-thrush : the dams defended their mansion with 
great vigour, and fought resolutely for " their faith and for their 
homes : " pro aris et focis ; but numbers at last prevailed, they 
tore the nest to pieces, and swallowed the young alive. 
[Thrushes during long droughts are of great service in hunt- 
iDg out shell-snails,^ which they pull in pieces for their young, 
^ Of the truth of this I have been an eye-witness, having seen the common 
thrush feeding on the shell-snail. — Markwick. 
