30 Bird-Song : and New Zealand Song Birds 
Family: Turdidae 
THE THRUSHES 
Britain lias six birds of this family; three permanent resi¬ 
dents,—the missel-bird, the song-thrush, and the blackbird;_ 
and three visitors,—the redwing and fieldfare in winter, and 
the ring-ouzel in summer. 
The thrush and the blackbird are, apparently, the two best 
songsters of the family. Linnaeus considered that the song of 
the redwing rivalled that of the nightingale, but Yarrell dis¬ 
agrees with him, thinking the song of the song-thrush, which 
that of the redwing resembles, “infinitely superior.” Linnaeus, 
however, wrote of the song as heard in Lapland, where it is 
quite possible that the song is finer than that heard in Britain, 
which is not the native home of the bird. Of the fieldfare, 
larrell says that the “song is poor, though by some called 
soft and melodious,”—again a difference of opinion probably 
caused through difference in ear, or difference in observation. 
The song of the ring-ouzel resembles that of the blackbird, and 
is a "plaintive melody, consisting of a few notes uttered in a 
clear and warbling whistle.” 
New Zealand once had two species of thrush, so-called, one 
foi each island, the North and the South: a third species was 
found in the Chatham Islands. This is one of the birds that 
has retieated before the advance of civilization, and is now 
almost extinct. 
In place of it, however, New Zealand has gained the British 
thrush. This has become acclimatized in all parts of the 
islands. It is heard almost the whole year round; and the 
gardens and shrubberies about the towns and cities, the plan¬ 
tations of the open country, the clumps of Maori bush even 
in the high alpine regions, are thickly peopled with the joyous 
thrush. 
During my daily business walk in the cities of Wellington 
and Christchurch, I have heard the singing of the thrush,— 
