Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/26

2 when irreconcilable with my own, in a harsh or captious manner, for I am by no means insensible of the heavy debt ornithologists of every degree owe to the writings of their predecessors; nevertheless, the truth is, or should be, the common object of all who write sketches of bird-life.

Many a time in the spring of the year, when I have been waiting and watching in some plantation or wood in order to watch a Sparrow-Hawk to its selected nest, old nests of years gone by being in almost every tree, have I been indebted to the far less harmonious, not to say angry and objurgatory, notes of the Mistle-Thrush at a distance for warning to pull myself together and be on the alert; while a moment or so later, swiftly and silently winging its flight amidst the trees, has the special object of my ramble appeared, shooting up at last to its perch upon a branch, and remaining perfectly motionless while eventually affording me—provided my ambush had told no tales—the identical piece of information I was in want of. In defence of its nest the Mistle-Thrush is very courageous, but still more so in defence of its young when on the point of quitting it; I have observed some battles royal on the part of this bird with Rooks and Jackdaws, and, though successful on occasions in fraudulently appropriating the eggs, I have never seen the two species just mentioned actually capture the young.

I have good reasons for considering this bird a very early breeder. I have never detected its nest in abnormal situations, nor have I come across abnormal eggs, either as regards colour, shape, or size, as has been the case with sundry other birds; but a most singular instance respecting the nesting of this species came under my notice in the spring of 1883. In May of that year there were two Mistle-Thrushes' nests built low down in ornamental yew trees, within half a dozen yards of each other, opposite the hall-door of a country house in Leicestershire. Both nests contained eggs when I found them, and in each instance broods were successfully reared. Some few days after all the young ones had flown, I was rather surprised to notice an old bird again on one of the nests, and, on inspecting it, I was a great deal more surprised to find that it contained no fewer than nine eggs, five being of the type of those originally laid in it, and the remaining four evidently the property of the Mistle-Thrush