THE THRUSH. 
148 
various aptitudes and comprehensions, sensibility or in- 
attention to sounds, &c., it seems but reasonable to 
consider them as gifted with latent passions ; though 
being devoid of mind to stimulate or call them into ac- 
tion by any principle of volition or virtue, how excited 
to performance we know no more than we do the 
motives of many of their bodily actions ! The kind- 
nesses and attentions which the maternal creature mani- 
fests in rearing its young, and the assistance occasion- 
ally afforded by the paternal animal, during the same 
period, appears to be a natural inherent principle uni- 
versally diffused throughout creation ; but when we see 
a sick or maimed animal supplied and attended by an- 
other, which we suppose gifted with none of the stimuli 
to exertion that actuate our conduct, we endow them by 
this denial with motives with which we ourselves are 
unacquainted ; and at last we can only relate the fact, 
without defining the cause. 
The throstle is a bird of great utility in a garden 
where wall-fruit is grown, by reason of the peculiar 
inclination which it has for feeding upon snails, and 
very many of them he does dislodge in the course of 
the day. When the female is sitting, the male bird 
seems to be particularly assiduous in searching them 
out, and I believe he feeds his mate during that period, 
having frequently seen him flying to the nest with food, 
long before the eggs were hatched ; after this time the 
united labors of the pair destroy numbers of these in- 
jurious creatures. That he will regale himself fre- 
quently with a tempting gooseberry, or bunch of cur- 
rants, is well known, but his services entitle him to a 
very ample reward. The blackbird associates with these 
thrushes in our gardens, but makes no compensation for 
our indulgences after his song ceases, as he does not 
feed upon the snail ; but the thrush benefits us through 
the year by his propensities for this particular food, 
and every grove resounds with his harmony in the 
season; and probably if this race suffered less from 
the gun of the Christmas popper, the gardener might 
find much benefit in his ensuing crop of fruit, from the 
forbearance* 
