The natural history of Selborne . foddered in a yard, and makeplenty of dung. Linnaeus says that hawks paciscuntur induciascum avibus, quarndiu cuculus cuculat; but it ap-pears to me that during that period many littlebirds are taken and destroyed by birds of prey, asmay be seen by their feathers left in lanes andwnder hedges. The is, while sitting, fierce andpugnacious, driving such birds as approach its nest,with great fury, to a distance. The Welsh call itfen y llwyn, the head or master of the suffers no magpie, jay, or blackbird to enter thegarden where he haunts,
The natural history of Selborne . foddered in a yard, and makeplenty of dung. Linnaeus says that hawks paciscuntur induciascum avibus, quarndiu cuculus cuculat; but it ap-pears to me that during that period many littlebirds are taken and destroyed by birds of prey, asmay be seen by their feathers left in lanes andwnder hedges. The is, while sitting, fierce andpugnacious, driving such birds as approach its nest,with great fury, to a distance. The Welsh call itfen y llwyn, the head or master of the suffers no magpie, jay, or blackbird to enter thegarden where he haunts, and is, for the time, agood guard to the new-sown legumens. In general OF SELBORNE. 223 he is very successful in the defence of his family;but once I observed in my garden that s^jveral came determined to storm the nest of a missel-thrush ; the dams defended their mansion with greatvigour, and fought resolutely pro aris etfocis ; butnumbers at last prevailed ; they tore the nest topieces, and swallowed the young alive.*. In the season of nidification the wildest birds * Thrushes, during loner droughts, are of great service in hunt-ing out shell-snails, which they pull in pieces for their young,and are thereby very serviceable in gardens. Missel-thrushes donot destroy the fruit in gardens like the other species of thrushes(turdi), but feed on the berries of mistletoe, and in the spring onivy-berries, which then begin to ripen. In the summer, whentheir young become fiedged, they leave neighbourhoods, and re-tire to shespwalks and wild commons. The magpies, when they have young, destroy the broods ofmissel-thrushes, though the dams are fierce birds, and fightboldly in defence of their nests. It is probably to avoid suchinsults that this species of thrush, though wild at other times,delights to build near houses, and in frequented walks and gar-dens.—Whites Observations on Birds. 224 NATURAL HISTORY are comparatively tame. Thus the ring-dove con-structs her nest in my fi
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booky
