NOTES TO THE 
the missel thrush have been selected from some hundred speci- 
mens. It lays from four to five e^gs. The missel thrush is the 
largest of our native thrushes. The origin of the name is un- 
certain ; they are very common all over England, nevertheless 
they are migratory, and come with the felts and redwings, feed- 
ing on the mountain asli and other berries. They are never 
kept in captivity ; they sing almost any time of the year, except 
autumn ; they are very good eating." — G. ISTxVPIER. 
Missel Thrush's Nest, p. 90.—" H." (Wexford) thus writes 
to Land and Water: — " One of my young ones informed me 
there w^as a missel thrush's nest made nearly entirely of scraps 
of newspapers tliat they had picked up, and a few days after- 
wards I heard of a blackbird's similarly constructed. On look- 
ing at the latter, what was my surprise to find nearly all the 
scraps were portions of your paper. Land and Water. May I 
ask, Was this natural selection ? Where the birds got tlie paper 
there were scraps of half a dozen diti'erent newspapers, and how 
were these blackbirds able to pick out those of your own paper 
from all the others ? " 
Blackbird's Nest Ornamented with Lace. — Mr. Hugh 
Hamilton, of Pinmore, Girvan, in Sept. 1875, wrote me as 
follows : — " In the month of May some laces were laid out on 
the w^ashing-green folded all together. They were left out all 
night, but when looked for in the morning were not to be found. 
As there was a good deal of wind in the night it was thought 
they might have been blown over into a neighbour's garden, but 
the gardens were searched without success. About three weeks 
after, one of the neighbour's gardeners brought a blackbird's 
nest with five eggs in it, to the owner of the lace, which he had 
found in a tree in his garden. It was festooned with the lace 
as in the photograph. There were three different kinds of lace 
— 2J yards Lisle, 1 yard Mechlin, and yards Valenciennes, 
besides several pieces of other lace worked in and out through- 
out the nest, which were destroyed in detaching it. I inclose 
a photograph which I took myself." Mr. Hamilton has allowed 
this photograph to be copied for this book. The reader will 
agree with me that it has been most beautifully drawn and 
does great credit to the able pencil of Mr. Delamotte of King's 
College. My answer was as follows : — " I have no doubt the 
blackbird used the lace in making its nest. An interesting 
question arises from this as to whether the blackbird had an 
idea that his nest would be ornamented with the lace. The 
