252 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE.

Again he pauses; listens again; hops, perhaps once or twice,
scarcely moving his position, and pecks smartly on the sod;
then is once more motionless as a stuffed bird. But he knows
well what he is about; for, after another moment’s pause,
having ascertained that all is right, he pecks away with might
and main, and soon draws out a fine worm, which his fine
sense of hearing had informed him was not far off, and which
his hops and previous peckings had attracted to the surface,
to escape the approach of what the poor worm thought might
be his underground enemy, the mole.”
The Missel The Missel Thrush, so called from its fondness
Thrush. for the mistletoe, is larger than the common or
song thrush, less melodious and not so common in England,
but well known upon the continent of Europe. Like the
song thrush it finds a determined enemy in the magpie,
against which it often defends itself with success. It is, how-
ever, unable to withstand a combined attack. Gilbert White
says: “The Missel-thrush is, while breeding, fierce and pugna-
cious, driving such birds as approach its nest with great fury
to a distance. The Welsh call it “pen y Ilwyn,” the head
or master of the coppice. He suffers no magpie, jay, or
blackbird, to enter the garden where he haunts; and is, for
the time, a good guard to the new-sown legumens. In general,
he is very successful in the defence of his family; but once
I observed in my garden, that several magpies came deter-
mined to storm the nest of a missel-thrush: the dams defended
their mansion with great vigour, and fought resolutely pro aris
et focts ; but numbers at last prevailed, they tore the nest to
pieces, and swallowed the young alive.”
The The Blackbird is another of the most cherished
Blackbird. of English song birds. It is one of the earliest
to wake the morning with a song. Its habits are similar te
those of the Thrush ; it builds its nest in bushes, in shrubberies
and gardens, safe from the sight, but close to the haunts of
man. It lines its nest with a plaster of mud which it covers