A dictionary of British birds : reprinted from Montagu's Ornithological dictionary, and incorporating the additional species described by Selby; Yarrell, in all three editions, and in natural-history journals / compiled and edited by Edward Newman.

George Montagu

Date:: 1866

Credit: A dictionary of British birds : reprinted from Montagu's Ornithological dictionary, and incorporating the additional species described by Selby; Yarrell, in all three editions, and in natural-history journals / compiled and edited by Edward Newman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$apple trftes; frequenting orchards more than any other place in the spring ; and never builds in a bush. Tlie nest is invariably made of white moss and coarse grass, wove together with wool, and lined with flue dry grass. The eggs are four or five, and rarely six, in number, of a llesh-colour, marked with deep and light rust-coloured spots ; their weight something more than two drams. The song of this bird is much louder and superior to that of the Throstle; frequently perching upon the uppermost branch of a tall tree, it sings while the female is making her nest, and during incubation ; but becomes silent as soon as the young are hatched, and is no more heard till the beginning of the new year. H the young are taken, its song continues as before; and if the female is destroyed, it continues in song the whole summer. This experiment we have tried upon this and several other song birds, and always found it invai-iable. The Missel is a very bold bird during the breeding season, drives all others from the neigh- bourhood of its nest, and will even attack the Magpie and Jay. Its food, hke the other species, is insects and bereies, par- ticularly that of the misseltoe, which has been supposed necessary to pass through the body of this bird to make it vegetate. That the seed of the berry will propagate after passing the organs of digestion, is no more wonderful than that corn should grow when voided whole by a horse. But such a preparation is no more necessary in the one than in the other, but may be considered as one of the methods Nature takes to disperse the seeds of various qjlants. Supplement.—The name of Storm-cock appears to be given both to this and the Throstle ; the Missel is also called Holm- screech in some parts of Devonshire. In defect of other food the Missel and Throstle feed on the roots of plants and on ivy-ber.. ries, and by such means are able to sub- sist, while the Fieldfare and Redwing are starving, in severe weather. [Thrush, Ring.—See Ouzel, Ring.] [Thrush, Rock. — Yarrell, i. 245 ; Hewit- son, xxvi. 95. Turdus saxatilis, Temm. Mail. d'Ornith. i. 172, iii. 102. Petrocincla saxatilis, Gould, Birds of Europe, fol.; Yarrell, 1. c. — “ The male bii-d has the beak black, the irides hazel; the whole of the head and the neck all round bluish grey; upper part of the back the same, but passing into brownish black on the scapularics; the greater part of the back white, varied with a few bluish grey fea- thers ; tail-feathers chestnut-brown, the two in the middle rather darker in colour than the others; \vings and wing-coverts dark brown, almost blackish brown ; the greater wing-coverts and the secondaries tipped with buffy white ; the whole of the under surface of the body, and under tail- coverts, light chestnut-brown or bay; legs and toes dark reddish brown. The whole length of the bird seven and a half inches; the wing, from the anterior joint to the end of the longest quill-feather, four inches and three-quarters. The female has all the upper surface of the body of a dull brown ; on the back are some large white spots edged with brown; throat and sides of the neck pure white, some of the fea- thers occasionally varied with ash-brown ; all the other under parts reddish white, with fine transverse lines at the end of each feather; tail light bay, the two mid- dle feathers ash-brown.” — Yarrell, i. 247. This Thrush is Asiatic and European, breeding in rocky places in Spain, South- ern Fj-ance and Northern Italy, and win- tering in the Islands of the Mediterranean and Africa. It builds in the rocky situa- tions which are its usual residence, the nest being composed externally of mosses and lichens, and lined with hair: it lays five eggs of a pale unspotted greenish blue. Mr. Yarrell’s figure, above referred to, is drawn from a specimen obtained on the 19th of May, 1844, at Thorfield, near Roy- ston, in Hertfordshire.] [Thrush, Rosecoloured.—See Ouzel, Rose- coloured.] Thrush, Sand.—See Ouzel, Water. Thrush, Screech.—See Thrush, Missel. Thrush, Sohtary.—Supplement.— Tur- dus sohtarius, Ind. Orii. i. p. 345; Gviel. Syst. i. p. 834. Passer solitarius, Baii Syn. p. 00, 4; Will. p. 140. Merula soli- taria, Briss. ii. p. 208, 30; Id. 8vo, i. p. 233. Le Merle solitaire, Bt(f. iii. p. 358. Passera sohtaria, Olin. uc. t. p. 14; Klein. Av. p. 07, 11. Turdus solitarius, Hasselq. Act. Ups. 1750, p. 21; Id. Voy. (ed. Angl.) p. 20. Solitary Thrush, Lath. Syn. iii. p. 52 ; Will. (Angl.) p. 191, t. 30, 37. — This species is about nine inches in length. The bill is dusky, nine-tenths of an inch long to the feathers on the middle of the forehead, straight, except at the tip, w-here the upper mandible is a little deflected and pi-ojeots beyond the lower; the base is rather broad, but there is scarcely any ap- pearance of a notch at the end : the nos- trils are placed at the base of the bill, and are partly covered by the feathers, which come rather more forward on the sides than on the ridge of the bill. The general colour of the jAumage is brown; the upper$