MR. J. H. GURNEY, JUN., ON THE THRUSH TRIHE IN ENGL.\ND. G2] 
Thrush, 2'unlux musiruft, Linn. 
This universal favourite, in the judgment of Martial, is the best 
meat of all birds, being among the feathered creation what the hare 
is among quadrupeds. At the present day this judgment is certainly 
not disputed at Berlin and Brussels, where tlie poultry markets 
are full of them, as well as at other towns on the Continent which 
I have visited. In Heligoland may be seen barricades of bushes 
artfully constructed with a net behind, about twenty feet by twelve, 
in which numbers are captured, and tliere, in the migratory season, 
the islanders must almost live on Thrushes and other kinds of birds, 
which form a staple article of diet ; and fortunate it is for them that 
they have such food to fall back ui)on in time of scarcity, when 
rough seas cut off their weekly supplies from Hamburgh. The 
result of all this i.s, that, on the Continent, Thrushes avoid the 
society of man, and very rarely come neirr towns, ^ whereas in 
England they are the tame and protected denizens of every garden. 
Yet they are everywhere common, and the (piantity which are 
snared abroad does not seem to make much difference in their 
numbers, each returning season bringing with it its fresh supply. 
In October our home-bred Thrushes go south, and in November 
we receive an immense number of migrants from the north. jMost 
of these come over the sea, and several ornithologists have considered 
that they come from Heligoland ; some may do so, but in the 
writer’s opinion, the majority come from Norway. In 1883 there was 
a rush simultaneously on our east coast and in Heligoland, but even 
then tliey appeared three days earlier in England.- But this 
matter has been treated of before in our ‘Transactions,’® and 
therefore need not be dwelt on again. 
The liKt nest in the shrubbery is sure to be a Thrush’s, though 
it is not uncommon for them to nest on the ground, and it is 
marvellous how smooth they can make the inside with a coating of 
mud, which soon become water-tight, and which Seebohm says they 
mould into a round form with their bodies.^ My father, in 
a communication to the ‘Zoologist,’ has noted a nest in which this 
inside coating was entirely absent ; and Mr. Whitaker found three 
such mistakes, if they may be called so, in one wood® and all 
' Keulemans’ ‘ Cage Birds,’ p. 72. • Rojwrt on Migration, p. 35. 
’ Vol. iv. p. 52. ‘ ‘ British Birds,’ p. 218. 
* ‘ Zoologist,’ 1887, p. 268. 
