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 A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE pieces of white calico, a great many of which, having been washed, were laid on a cropped garden hedge to dry. A considerable number were found to be missing, but the real thief was not suspected until the pieces of calico were discovered worked with a liberal mixture of dry grass, roots and mud into a nest of a missel-thrush in an adjoining orchard. The early-constructed nest of this bird, al- ways in some naked tree or large bush, is seen at once by every marauding magpie who hap- pens to come that way, discovery and de- struction are with him one and the same. The magpie will perch on the side of the nest, and despite the clamour of the thrush, deliber- ately devour either eggs or young, or both. 2. Song-Thrush. Turdus musicus, Linn. Though well known everywhere, the song- thrush is not generally suspected of being a very great consumer of snails. Yet there is no other bird which devours them wholesale as this thrush does. At all seasons when these gasteropods are obtainable the thrush smashes their hard shell on a stone to get at the con- tents, and being by no means a shy bird, espe- cially where there are no guns, the breaking- up process may be readily observed. The bird takes the snail by the lip of the shell, and raising itself up to its full height, brings it down on the stone, and continues the process until the shell is so much broken that the soft mollusc can be extracted, it is then torn to pieces and swallowed. Even the large garden snail, He/ix aspersa, is not proof against the smashing powers of the thrush, while the shells of all the smaller banded snails are easily mani- pulated. 3. Redwing. Turdus iliacus, Linn. Arriving in this country earlier in the win- ter than the fieldfare, the appearance of the redwing is not so easily noted on account of its general resemblance to the song-thrush. Its mode of flying will however readily distinguish it. When put up it hurries off in a rapid and twisting flight, taking an upward direction, and very rarely near to the ground, as is ob- servable with the song-thrush when disturbed. Whether the redwing feeds in the winter on anything more than hedge fruit and an occa- sional insect I am not able to say, but it has not been observed like the song-thrush and blackbird to have recourse to a special diet, nor yet to feed on turnips or other roots like the fieldfare. 4. Fieldfare. Turdus pilaris, Linn. During very hard winters fieldfares suffer very severely, and even die of starvation after the fruit of the whitethorn has been consumed. At such times they frequent fields of swede turnips to feed, and attack the roots of that plant, often doing considerable mischief, for those roots which have been broken into by the bird rot off towards the spring. I have seen carrots, as well as turnips, which have thus been damaged by fieldfares. [White's Thrush. Turdus varius, Pallas. Although this rare bird has not as yet been met with in Worcestershire, one has been shot at Welford in Gloucestershire, which lies on a tongue of land running between the counties of Warwick and Worcester, and so near the boundary of the latter county that it may very properly be mentioned here. The occurrence was recorded by the present writer in one of the early volumes of the Ibis.'] 5. Blackbird. Turdus merula, ^' n. Blackbirds, like song-thrushes, feed largely on snails, but instead of selecting the large ones they take the very smallest and swallow them whole. During the winter months the blackbird turns over the dead leaves lying in the bottom of woods, coppices, shrubberies and hedgerows for the small molluscs or crustaceans concealed beneath them, and if approached cautiously when so engaged, may be seen flinging the leaves alternately to the right and left while eagerly prosecuting his search. 6. Ring-Ousel. Turdus torquatus, Linn. This bird is generally seen in Worcester- shire as a passing visitor in the spring and autumn, sometimes remaining for a week or more on its journey. It was ' of unfrequent occurrence ' when Sir Charles Hastings wrote in 1834. Lees, 1870, records it as an autumnal visitor only in the vicinity of Mal- vern, but Mr. W. Edwards of that place found a nest containing four eggs near there in 1877. The berries of the mountain ash appear to be a great attraction to it. 7. Wheatear. Saxicola oenanthe (Linn.). Two very distinct races of wheatears visit us in the spring and autumn, but so far as I know, only temporarily : the one a small variety, and the other materially larger and more delicately coloured. Lees says that a few wheatears frequent the Malvern Hills and breed, but he gives no particulars, and indeed does not appear to have recognized the two varieties. The smaller wheatear is the less common the earlier to arrive, and is never seen except on the ground. The larger one comes two or three weeks later, and often alights on hedges, bushes, and even trees, flit- ting from tree to tree along a hedgerow. I 144