BRITISH SONG-BIRDS 
CHAPTER I. 
THRUSHES. 
The Merulidae, or Thrash family, includes, besides the song, 
the wood, the missel, and other true thrashes, the various 
orioles and ouzels. 
For size, the missel thrash may claim precedence of his 
brethren, hut otherwise he is in no way superior. True, he has 
a song, hut it is of so wild and boisterous a character as to be 
altogether unbearable in a moderate- sized chamber ; moreover, 
it is not cheerful music, but wailing and melancholy, almost 
as the piping of the wind through a ship’s rigging on a stormy 
night. Again, he is a dreadful feeder, and requires a cage as 
large as that of the macaw. 
Sometimes this bird is spoken of as the storm-thrush, and 
not inappropriately ; for, when the wind is blowing great guns, 
