in spring, and continuing it at intervals till autumn. In addition
to this great recommendation to favour, the bird is inoffensive
in habit, elegant in shape, sprightly in action, and
engaging by its confidence. It is a native of Europe generally,
and resident throughout the year in all the more temperate
portions. It is not, like the Redwing, gregarious, but
is so distributed that scarcely any district not entirely destitute
of wood is found to be without it. It frequents more
particularly small woods, plantations, and shrubberies, seeking
its food in meadows, lawns, and gai’dens. It feeds on
insects, worms, various species of garden snails (the shells of
which are broken against a stone, and afterwards shaken off
with great dexterity), fruit, and, in the winter, various berries.
In the grape countries of Europe, the Thrush feeds
luxuriously during autumn on ripe grapes; and in France
this bird is in great request for the table at that time, from
the extra condition and flavour which abundance of this rich
food imparts to its flesh.
White of Selborne considered it a rule, that whenever
there was incubation, there was music ; and the early spring
song of the Thrush is an equally true indication of an early-
breeder. The nest is frequently placed in the centre of a
thick and tall bush or shrub, sometimes in a holly or fir tree,
and occasionally this bird has been known to make its nest
in an open shed or tool-house. The nest formed externally
of green moss and fine roots; the inner surface smooth and
compact, being lined with a thin coating of cowdung and
rotten wood, so equally spread over and cemented, that when
dry, it will, for a time, hold water; and so much rain has been
found in a Thrush’s nest in an exposed situation, as to have
induced the belief that the nest had been deserted as untenantable.
The eggs are usually four or five in number, of
a beautiful light blue colour, with a few small well-defined black
spots over the larger end: the length of the egg one inch one
line, by ten lines in breadth. An observer, in Mr. Loudon’s
Magazine of Natural History, after detailing some particulars
as to the nest building by a pair of Thrushes, writes, “ When
all was finished, the cock took his share of the hatching ; but
he did not sit so long as the hen, and he often fed her while
she was upon the nest. In thirteen days the young birds
were out of the shells, which the old ones always carried off.”
Mr. Jenyns, in his Manual, says, the young of the first
brood are hatched about the beginning of April, and sometimes
earlier. I remember once to have seen young Thrushes
on the last day of March. The parent birds rear two broods
in the season.
Mr. Knapp, in his Journal of a Naturalist, has related
an interesting fact in reference to the Thrush in the following
terms :—“ We observed this summer two Common Thrushes
frequenting the shrubs on the green in our garden. From
the slenderness of their forms and "the freshness of their
plumage, we pronounced them to be birds of the preceding
summer. There was an association and friendship between
them that called our attention to their actions. One of them
seemed ailing, or feeble from some bodily accident; for though
it hopped about, yet it appeared unable to obtain sufficiency
of food. Its companion, an active, sprightly bird, would frequently
bring it worms or bruised snails, when they mutually
partook of the banquet; and the ailing bird would wait
patiently, understand the actions, expect the assistance of
the other, and advance from his asylum upon its approach.
This procedure was continued for some days ; but after a
time we missed the fostered bird, which probably died, or
by reason of its weakness met with some fatal accident.”
Towards the end of autumn our native Thrushes receive
a considerable accession in number from the birds that arrive
from the North. M. Nilsson, a Professor of Natural History
in Sweden, says, “ the Thrushes leave that country for
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