MISSEL THRUSH. 
125 
I am assured by Mr. James B. Garrett, that he has several times 
known one of a pair of missel thrushes to be killed in the breeding 
season, and in every such instance another mate was soon found 
to supply the loss. 
The few nests which I have particularly examined, were out- 
wardly composed of larch or birch twigs and strong grasses ; the 
interstices being filled up with mosses and jungermannia ; they 
were lined in the bottom with fine grasses. There was no struc- 
ture that could, correctly, be designated “ a substantial wall of 
clay” (Architecture of Birds, p. 210). The bottom generally 
contained a portion of it; but in one nest there was not a 
particle of clay, nor any other substance that could be used 
in “ masonry.” Mr. Poole remarks: — “The nest is not, so far 
as my experience goes, (nor, it may be added, mine either) at- 
tached by lichens or anything else to the tree in which it is built. 
The materials composing it are remarkably heterogeneous; sticks, 
moss, grass, wool, feathers or shavings ; and once, a portion of 
a newspaper entered into the composition.” — This gentleman 
adds, that he has “ known this bird to build, successively in the 
same fork of a tree for several years.” The indiscriminate 
nature of the materials used in the structure of its nest by the 
missel thrush, has indeed, occasionally, brought against it the 
charge of pilfering, as in the following instances. 
Some years ago, a lady residing near Ballymena lost in the 
spring a lace cap which had been laid on the grass to dry. In 
the autumn, when the leaves began to fall, something white 
appeared in one of the trees, and on inspection, proved to be the 
missing cap, which had been used by one of these birds in the 
construction of its nest. 
I had evidence of a similar depredation, but of a minor degree 
of turpitude, being committed ; a narrow piece of net, a yard in 
length, which was carried off when bleaching, being afterwards, in 
my presence, found composing part of a nest. 
Like some others of the genus, the missel-thrush is, in England, 
noticed only as an early songster; but, except in the moulting 
season, its song may occasionally be heard in Ireland at every 
