would not withhold it; yet surely the caged bird, made as it was with wings to fly, may claim some pity as we remember how all its natural impulses must lead it to yearn for the green shadows, the ready wing, and the notes of its old companions.

Happily for our native thrushes, however, they may sing on, without danger of being seized to contribute to the luxurious diet of the epicure. Several birds of the thrush family are much in request on the Continent for food. The Italians sell them in their markets, and highly prize them, at the period when, having eaten figs and grapes, their flesh is said to be very highly flavoured. Thrushes are very plentiful, during the vintage season, on the southern coast of the Baltic. Klein, who observes that there are, probably, more snares laid for these birds than for any others, mentions that the city of Dantzic alone consumes, every year, eighty thousand pairs of thrushes. It has been observed, in countries where they feed upon grapes, that, during the season at which the fruits are ripe, the thrushes are easily taken, having perhaps become inactive through repletion.

The common song-thrush was, doubtless, one of

the species which were regarded by the Romans as the choicest of feathered game; and many a sweet chorus of song in the trees of the Roman villas and gardens led to the capture of the singers. Extensive aviaries were formed around the ancient city, in which thrushes, blackbirds, fieldfares, redwings, and other birds of this family, were kept during the whole year, that they might be prepared for the table. A vaulted pavilion formed the aviary; this was furnished with perches. A carpet was made of green turfs, often renewed, and branches were strewed over the floor. Here, crowded together in great numbers, the birds were well fed; and, lest some wandering wing might be seen, and thus awaken a longing for the green wood, the windows were so placed as that the little captives might receive light without a sight of the blue sky or the surrounding country. A clear rivulet ran through the aviary, in order to gratify their love of bathing; and here the petted birds sang and ate till they were fitted to gratify the taste of the luxurious Roman. It may be, that the epicure justified his appetite for singing birds on the ground of the invigorating nature of the flesh of the

thrushes; for their writers tell of its power to strengthen the frame; adding, that if eaten to excess, it could not injure. Horace, as well as other poets, praises the diet.

As we might infer from the early singing of the thrush, it is an early builder. It usually begins its nest in March, and by the end of April, or the beginning of May, the first brood is ready to leave the nest. Although the thrush seems to have little notion of protecting itself during the winter from the cold, as it usually roosts, with other small birds, in the open hedges, yet it well knows how to shield its eggs and young from the bitter winds of the early springtime. The nest, which is composed externally of moss and fine roots, has a compact inner surface, lined with a coating of cow-dung and decayed wood, so ingeniously worked in together, as that it will even hold water. This structure is usually placed in some low bush, as the honey-suckle or hawthorn, or in one of the garden evergreens, and contains four or five eggs, of a pale blue ground, with small spots of black. Every schoolboy knows the thrush's eggs, for they may be seen continually strung and hung up in the farm-house

or cottage, save where the old superstition yet lingers, that if they are kept over Sunday, the housewife will rue it in her broken crockery. So little fear of man has the thrush, that it sometimes builds in places where its nest cannot fail to be seen by the inmates of the house; and instances are known in which the little dwelling has been made in outbuildings where workmen have been daily employed.

Every one who has a garden has good reason to welcome the thrush there, not for its song only, but for its active services. It is true that this bird will not scruple to help itself to the ripest cherry, or to the finest gooseberry on the bough, but on the other hand, no bird is more skilful in ridding the garden of the snails and slugs, which destroy alike the loveliest flowers, and the finest fruits. All the thrushes, as well as the blackbird, make great havoc among the snails; but the missel-thrush, like the blackbird, is not nearly so skilful in shelling them as is the common thrush: and it is said, by Mr. Blyth, to commence its operations by endeavouring to pull the snail from its shell. This it finds difficult, and it is at last obliged to break the shell as well as it can, so that, as this

writer observes, "a song-thrush will devour five or six snails before a blackbird can swallow one." The season in which they consume the greatest number of these animals is in winter, after a night or two of severe weather, when the ground is crisp and hard with frost, and is glittering in the sun-beam, as if strewed with diamonds. A writer in the Magazine of Natural History, says, "In winter, after a night or two sharply frosty, with just a sprinkling of snow on the ground, it is pleasing to stroll beside hedgerows, and see the Turdi* starting in and out on the face of the hedge-banks, and between the base of the stems of the hedges, in search of snails. If you proceed slowly, a smart reiterated tapping, not loud, but obvious, is heard at uncertain intervals, as the Turdi may find their prey; this they break, not wherever found, but on some stone, fixed firmly, with one face exposed in the bank-side, and, I think, station themselves below the stone. I have, in my vocabulary, called such stones chosen of the thrushes, the thrushes' chopping-blocks." The same writer observes, that the thrushes also consume a great number of snails during July and

*The generic name of the thrushes and blackbirds.