264 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 
fondling tremulous voice and fluttering wings, and all the little 
blandishments that are expressed by the young, while in a help- 
Rookery. 
less state. This gallant deportment of the males is continued 
through the whole season of incubation. These birds do not 
copulate on trees, nor in their nests, but on the ground in the 
open fields.* 
THRUSHES. 
Thrushes 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.f Missel thrushes do not 
destroy the fruit in gardens like the other species of turdi, but 
feed on the berries of misseltoe, 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 commons. J 
* After the first brood of rooks are sufficiently fledged, they all leave their nest trees in the 
day-time, and resort to some distant place in search of food, but return regularly every evening, 
in vast flights, to their nest trees, where, after flj'ing round several times with much noise and 
clamour, till they are all assembled together, they take up their abode for the night. — Mahk- 
WICK. 
t The only instance 1 ever knew of the rook assuming the character of a predacious bird was 
towards a broo<l of young missel thrushes, which were attacked and destroyed by two or three of 
the sable gentry from a neighbouring rookery. To be sure, it was during a period of drought, 
when the rooks were a little put to for subsistence. The crow at all times is extremely predatory 
in its habits. — En. 
t The missel thrush is a great devourer of currants and gooseberries, also of green peas, as 
gardeners well know to their cost. — Ed. 
