622 MH. J. H. GURNEY, JUN., ON THE THRUSH TRIBE IN ENGLAND. 
containing eggs. April is the usual time for laying, but I have 
found eggs as early as February 28th, and as late as October 14th. 
One well-known sight of the Country Naturalist’s walk is the 
Thrush’s “ chopping block,” a stone bedaubed with slime and the 
fragments of snail shells, around which are commonly the remains 
of from two to fifteen of the pretty banded Wood Snail. But although 
this from the delicate texture of its shell is preferred by the Thrush, 
it can break the thiclv covering of a Whelk when need be, strange as 
it may seem.^ If the Thrush is disturbed at its work, and tlie 
snail-shell is not much broken, its occupant can mend it again.- 
I have seldom seen a Thrush’s stone with any chink, in which 
a snail could be pinned, but my father is able to confirm the obser- 
vation of St. John that some fix the shell and break it up.^ Worms 
are the Thrush’s chief prey, and as in the garden, and especially in 
seed-beds, worms are injurious, they do good in destroying them. 
Of course they are inveterate fruit-eaters in the season, and often 
get caught in the gooseberry nets, but they are not quite so bad as 
Blackbirds ; and I know a gentleman who kills all the Blackbirds 
in his garden but will not touch a Thrush, a distinction which 
has more in it than at first sight appears. 
Pied and white Tlirushes are too common to call for remark. 
Messrs. Gray and Cordeaux liavc dwelt on the dark colour of some of 
the Thrushes in Lincolnshire and the Hebrides, and I have often noticed 
that newly arrived migrants at Cromer and Cley in the autumn look 
small and dark when on the wing, but much is due to the character of 
the surroundings. Lewin figures a variety with a black eye-mark.'* 
Thrushes which are partial melanisms are also not uncommon in 
confinement, arising from an unnatural diet, but I never read or 
heard of a wild one which was a melanism. Blue unspotted eggs 
are not uncommon, but it is cpiite a mistake to suppose that such 
eggs produce pied or drab-coloured birds, a popular idea which is 
unsupported by any scientific observations. 
Redwing, Turdus i/iaent^, Linn. 
The Redwing comes to us from the northern parts of Europe, 
and is a regular and numerous Avinter visitant, coming in October 
’ Macgillivray, ‘ British Birds,’ vol. ii. ju Li t. 
■- ‘Birds of Middle, sex,’ p. 31. 
•' ‘Niitural History in Moray,’ p. 107. 
^ ‘ Birds of Great Britain,’ vol. ii. p. ()8. 
