KISSEL THRUSH. 
1G7 
The Missel-bird feeds on the berries of the mountain ash, 
the service tree, the juniper, the yew, holly, and ivy, hips 
and haws, grain and seeds of various kinds, caterpillars, 
beetles, and other insects, worms and snails. In hard weather, 
when food is scarce, it will drive away other Thrushes and 
Blackbirds from the trees where it is feeding. In gardens it 
commits some damage among the fruit; nay, it has been 
abundantly ascertained that it will, at all events when it has 
young, destroy other small birds. One has been seen flying 
off with a young Hedge-Sparrow in its bill, closely pursued 
by the bereaved parent; and another has been detected in the 
very act of killing a young Thrush—in fact, this carnivorous 
propensity is quite common to it; the eggs of other birds 
therefore also, as may be supposed, it likewise makes a practice 
of abstracting. 
W. F. W. Bird, Esq. relates in ‘The Naturalist/ volume ii, 
page 216, that one was caught in a gamekeeper’s trap, which 
had been baited with the egg of a small bird. The late 
William Thompson, Esq., of Belfast, says that Butcher Bird 
is the term applied to it in the county of Donegal, in 
Ireland. 
As a proof with regard to the present species also of the 
good effected by the destruction of insects, the following 
communication to Mr. Macgillivray, may be adduced—three 
young ones only had to be fed:—‘At twenty minutes past 
four o’clock they commenced the labours of the day. From 
that time until five they fed their young only five times; 
from five to six three times; from six to seven six times; 
from seven to eight twelve times; from eight to nine six 
times; from nine to ten four times; from ten to eleven five 
times; from eleven to twelve four times; from twelve to one 
three times; from one to two three times; from three to four 
two times; from four to five two times; from five to six two 
times; from six to seven five times; and from seven to eight 
only once;’ in all sixty-six times, each time bringing several 
large worms and snails, and this for the smallest usual number 
of young, and in addition to the food they must have taken 
themselves. Before venturing to the nest they generally 
alighted two or three times, remaining some seconds upon 
each of them, and looking around with the greatest jealousy 
and circumspection. 
The song of this bird, which is of rather an inferior 
quality, is commenced, or rather carried on, in the earliest 
