822 
OBSERVATIONS 
THRUSHES. 
Theushes during long droughts are of great service in 
hunting out shell snails, which they pull in pieces for their 
young, and are thereby very serviceable in gardens. Missel 
thrushes do not destroy the fruit in gardens like the other 
species of Turdi, but feed on the berries of misletoe,, and in 
the spring on ivy berries_, which then begin to ripen. In 
the summer, when their young become fledged, they leave 
neighbourhoods, and retire to sheep-walks and wild com- 
mons. 
MAGPIE. 
The magpies, when they have young, destroy the broods 
of missel thrushes ; though the dams are fierce birds, and 
fight boldly in defence of their nests. It is probably to 
avoid such insults, that this species of thrush, though wild 
of food, bnt return regularly every evening, in vast flights, to their nest 
trees, where, after flying round several times Avith much noise and cla- 
mour, till they are all assembled together, they take up their abode for 
the night. — Markwick. 
See Letter LIX. to Daincs Barrington, p. 296. — Ed. 
