HAVING told you a little about the Nightingale, the Lark, and the Blackbird, I think the next English singing bird that claims our attention is the Thrush. There are several kinds; the common Thrush, sometimes called the Throstle, the golden Thrush, the rock Thrush, and the missel Thrush. The first and the last, however, are what are chiefly found in England. They are much alike as to color; but the missel Thrush is much the larger bird, indeed, about the largest singing bird we have. It weighs five ounces. Its length is eleven inches; its breadth sixteen and a half. The head, back, and lesser portions of the wing are of a deep olive brown, the lower part of the back tinged with yellow, and the cheek and throat mottled with brown and white, while the breast and stomach are whitish yellow, marked with large spots of black, and the legs yellow. The common Thrush is about two-thirds the size of the missel, hut in every other respect, except in song, they are very similar.
The common Thrush is one of our very finest songsters, not only for the sweetness and variety of its notes, but for long continuance of its harmony. One thus sings of his song:—
“Sweet Thrush! whose wild untutored strain
Salutes the opening year,
Renew those melting notes again,
And soothe my ravished ear.
“While evening spreads her shadowy veil,
With pensive steps I'll stray,
And soft on tiptoe gently steal
Beneath thy favorite spray.
“Thy charming strain shall doubly please,
And move my bosom more;
Since innocence attunes those lays
Whispered by joy and love.”
Like the Blackbird, the note of the Thrush is very loud, and only suited for the woods, through which it rings with a shrill, clear sound that is peculiar to itself, but most animating. It chiefly consists of wild trills, and most distinct call notes. It also most clearly imitates other birds. It is altogether too loud for the house, though it is a favorite with all boys who are lovers of singing birds.
My next door neighbor has a great pet which begins its thrilling notes with earliest morning, and will continue all through the day. It will answer the inmates of the house most distinctly, will trill out with almost deafening tones quite a variety of call notes; suddenly stop, and in gentle strains imitate a Canary in the same room. For a moment it will stop, as if listening to the notes of some distant bird, which it at once takes up; first repeating them gently, as if trying its hand, but shortly trilling them out with amazing force. A great admirer of birds thus speaks of the powers of the Thrush. "Like all powerful song birds, the Thrush often seems to articulate words distinctly. We have heard one express in the course of its singing, sounds which fell on the ear as if it were repeating the words,—‘My dear—my pretty dear—my pretty little dear.' These accents were not caught up by one listener alone, who might, perhaps, have been deemed a little imaginative; but all who heard them were struck by the resemblance.”
But perhaps the nicest things about the Thrush have been said by a certain lady, who for months was confined to bed, but who found the songs of the birds a source of constant pleasure. Numbers of Blackbirds and Thrushes built their nests in a garden, and the wood-pigeons mingled their soft notes in the high trees. But there was one Thrush whose notes she soon learned to distinguish from all the other Thrushes. Every morning its voice was sure to precede the matins of all the other birds. In the day time its brilliant tones were mingled and almost lost in the general melody, but as soon as the sun was preparing to set, when the Blackbirds had either sung themselves to sleep, or were flown off to keep their festivities elsewhere, then came its practicing time. It selected a tree net far from the window of the invalid, while the other Thrushes placed themselves at a respectful distance, and edged in a note here and there when they could. It opened the rehearsal with a number of wild trills and calls, which the listener could not understand, only she found them very sweet and cheering, and it would pause between each, till it heard a soft response from a distant bough.
But when it had fixed on a little cadence pleasing to the songster, the Thrush would chant it over in a low tone, two or three times, as if to make sure of the strain, and then it was poured forth, with triumphant glee; when the bird would stop on a sudden, as if to say to its rivals, "Which of you can imitate my strains?”
“Their notes sounded" says the lady, "most sweet at various distances during these little intervals; but they seemed conscious of their inferiority to my favorite, who would suddenly break out into the same melody, upon which, doubtless, the songster had been musing all the while, enriching it by some little note or trill, the wildest and most touching that ever came into a Thrush's heart. I needed neither concert nor music-master, while I could listen to the untaught but not unpremeditated harmony of this little original professor.”
Beautiful as this is, and perfectly right in its place, yet let us hope that this highly gifted but invalid lady had a loftier source of pleasure and consolation, during her hours of pain and sickness. To God, the note of every bird is sweet, and it ascends to Him in praise. But if our hearts have not been attuned by God, the richest song of the sweetest songster of the woods would fail to call forth a song of real, though feeble praise to God Himself.
We may love the song of the bird, but how woefully and fatally ignorant are we of that blessed God who gave him that beautiful song! How glad I am to know that I write to many dear little ones, and some older ones too, who do know God; yea, who know Him as the God who has saved them, and has put a new song into their mouths, even praise unto our God.
And now I must just tell you why the larger and rarer kind of Thrush is called the "missel" Thrush. It lives chiefly on berries and especially the berry of the mistletoe, of which it is very fond, and whence it has got its name.
His song is very inferior to the common Thrush, but he is said to be a very bold and pugnacious bird, and will suffer no other bird to approach his nest. The Welsh call it "the lord of the coppice," for it drives away all corners by its vehement cries.