177 
Jealousy of Philomel. 
for the thrush; but a distinction between the two is 
made by Spenser as well as by Harrison:— 
“ The thrash replyes; the mavis descant playes.” 
( Epithalamion, line 80.) 
And Skelton, in his poem, Philip Sparow, writes :— 
“ The threstill with her warblynge, 
The mavis with her whistell.” 
In a poem by Grascoigne, The Complaint of Phylomena , a 
distinction is made between the mavis and the thrush. 
The " darling of the summer’s pride ” thus betrays all 
the jealousy of a neglected opera-singer in decrying her 
rivals :— 
“ These thriftles birds (quoth she) which spend the day 
In needlesse notes, and chaunt withouten skil, 
Are costly kept, and finely fedde alway 
With daintie foode, whereof they feede their fil. 
* % * * * 
“ The throstle, she which makes the wood to ring 
With shryching loude, that lothsome is to heare. 
Is costly kept, in cage : 0 wondrous thing ! 
The mavis eke, whose notes are nothing cleare.” 
Missel- 
thrush. 
The Missel-thrush, or Storm-cock, sometimes called 
the Holm-thrush from its fondness for holly- 
berries, though now one of the best known of 
our British birds, was apparently much scarcer in earlier 
times. Thomas Muffett, in his Healths Improvement 
(p. 101), says, “ Thrushes and mavisses feed most upon 
hawes, sloes, misle-berries, and privot-berries. Felde- 
fares,” he adds, “ are of the like feed, and give (almost) 
as good nourishment, yea better, when juniper-berries be 
ripe, for then all their flesh is perfumed with the scent 
thereof.” 
The Eedwing is mentioned in the article on migration 
already noticed: “ Such are the winter-birds 
that breed not here, as the woodcock, and 
wind-thrush (or the redwing, wheenerd, whindle; for so 
N 
Bedwing-. 
