Meanwhile the thrush is with us, year in year out, singing whenever it can, and persecuting snails in the intervals. For though it is fond of worms, and dotes on the berries of the mountain-ash, it has a perfect passion for snails. If a thrush is in a bush in a garden, and you throw a snail on to the garden path close by it, the thrush is promptly out. The sound of the shell on the gravel attracts it at once, for it is familiar with it. In winter, when the snails have all cuddled up together in some corner behind the flower-pots, or between the pear-tree stem and the wall, the thrush finds them out, and so long as a snail remains the thrush will stop. Nor is it a shy bird when thus engaged, for if you come suddenly upon it, walking quietly on the snow, it will hop off with its victim a little way and begin again tapping the poor snail upon a stone, till the little householder is left without a wall to protect it, and is swallowed. And if a thrush finds a secluded corner with a convenient stone there, it always takes its snails to the same spot, building up in its own way a little shell-midden, like those which prehistoric man has left us, of oyster-shells and clams, to puzzle over. When driven by stress of weather to the seashore, it treats the hard-shelled whelks just as it treated the garden-snails, and by persistent rapping on the rocks, arrives at its food. By nest, and, above all, by song, this bird is probably [Illustration: "_In days of pinching want_"] the best known of all our birds. The blackbird is quite as familiar by sight and by song, but many who know what the mavis' eggs and nests are like, would perhaps be puzzled to describe the merle's. The home of the hedge-sparrow, again, is well known, and, after a fashion, its appearance; but how many who hear it singing know who the small musician is? So, taken all round, the thrush is the bird we are most intimate with. And how welcome it always is on the lawn, with its charming plumage, and its pretty, half-timid way of coming out into public! "I hope I am not in the way?" it seems to ask, as it hops quickly out from under the shrubs, and as suddenly stops. "May I? Thanks." And out it hops a little further, and again stops. But why describe so well-known a favourite? Tennyson has put words to its song, and the better one knows the bird's song, the more admirable the poet's words appear. And the thrush sings alike, with constantly changing cadences but with always equal melody, when the wind is blowing bitterly over the tree-tops, when rain is falling, when the night is dark. In winter the poor bird, diffident of its welcome, seldom comes to the door for alms when others come in crowds. So if you have a wish to be kind to it in its days of pinching want, scatter some food farther from the house, out of sight of it, and there, if you go cautiously, you may always see the starved thrushes gratefully accepting their little dues of crumb and meat.