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THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. °° 165 
nest of a missel-thrush: the dams defended their mansion with 
great vigor, and fought resolutely “for their altars and their 
homes,” but numbers at last prevailed, and they tore the nest 
to pieces, and swallowed the young alive. 
[Thrushes during long droughts are of great service, in 
hunting out shell snails, which they pull to pieces for their 
young, and are thereby very serviceable in gardens. Missel- 
thrushes do not destroy the fruit in gardens like the other 
species of thrushes, but feed on the berries of mistletoe, and in 
the spring on ivy berries, which then begin to ripen. In the 
summer, when their young become fledged, they leave neigh- 
borhoods, and retire to sheepwalks, and wild commons. 
The magpies, when they have young, destroy the broods of 
missel-thrushes, though the dams are fierce birds, and fight 
boldly in defence of their nests. It is probably to avoid such 
insults, that this species of thrush, though wild at other times, 
delights to build near houses, and in frequented walks and 
gardens. — Observations on Nature. | 
In the season of nidification the wildest birds are compara- 
tively tame. Thus the ring-dove breeds in my fields, though 
they are continually frequented ; and the missel-thrush, though 
most shy and wild in the autumn and winter, builds in my 
garden close to a walk where people are passing all day long. 
Wall-fruit abounds with me this year; but my grapes, that 
used to be forward and good, are at present backward beyond 
all precedent ; and this is not the worst of the story; for the 
same ungenial weather, the same black cold solstice, has 
injured the more necessary fruits of the earth, and discolored 
and blighted our wheat. ‘The crop of hops promises to be 
very large. 
Frequent returns of deafness incommode me ‘sadly, and half 
disqualify me for a naturalist; for, when those fits are upon 
me, I lose all the pleasing notices and little intimations arising 
from rural sounds ; and May is to me as silent and mute with 
