118 
CAGE AND SINGING BIRDS. 
plumage, even in the mature birds; Bechstein points out 
several marks of distinction, but they are by no means to be 
depended on. Never, therefore, purchase a thrush until you 
have heard it sing-, and if its song is perfect, and the bird 
seems healthy and cheerful, do not begrudge a good price 
for it. 
These birds are very fond of bathing', and may often be 
caught in the water-trap, especially in September and Oc- 
tober, early in the morning and late in the evening. In the 
spring a fine-toned male may often be secured by means of a 
decoy and limed twigs. Barley-meal moistened with water 
— Bechstein says milk, but we do not advise this — should be 
given as a general diet: as occasional delicacies, snails, 
which the bird likes to crack, bits of raw or cooked meat 
and vegetables. This bird should have plenty of water and 
a good large cage, well sanded ; in this way it will live and 
delight you with its song for six or eight years. In Thu- 
ringia, it is said, they sometimes teach the thrush to articu- 
late words. Dealers speak of several varieties of this species, 
such as white, white-headed, mottled, gray, &c., but these 
are merely changes of plumage. 
THE MISSEL THRUSH. 
We scarcely know if the large, noisy, storm cock, as he is 
frequently called, should be included here^ but as he is 
sometimes kept in confinement, chiefly, we imagine, on ac- 
count of being a very fine and a docile bird, we will give 
him the benefit of the doubt. This may be called the king 
of the thrush family, being about ten or eleven inches in 
length, and stout in proportion. Its habits are much the 
same as those of the common thrush, and it may be fed and 
treated in a precisely similar manner. It is called the missel 
thrush on account of its fondness for the berries of the 
mistletoe plant, and storm cock because, as Gilbert White 
says, it sings early in the spring in blowing showery weather. 
Bechstein describes its natural song as clear and melan- 
choly, consisting of five or six unconnected notes. It is too 
loud for the sitting room, and its cage should, therefore, be 
hung in an ante-room or large hall. The Germans do not 
send us any of these birds, probably not thinking them 
worth the trouble of instructing ; but they are sometimes 
