138 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



emitted by all the thrushes of the world — the spotted 

 ground thrushes (Geocichld), supposed to be the 

 parental form; the typical thrushes (Turdus); and 

 the blackbirds (Merula). Ornithologists pay little 

 or no attention to the language of birds when con- 

 sidering the question of evolution, but here it might 

 help us to a right conclusion of the question whether 

 the blackbirds are an offshoot of the typical thrushes, 

 or sprang independently from the ground thrushes. 

 In studying the language of the blackbird alone one 

 might spend half a lifetime very pleasantly. In the 

 development of their vocal organs they stand highest 

 among birds, and they have a world-wide distribution, 

 numbering about seventy species. What more fas- 

 cinating object in life for a wandering Englishman 

 who desires to see all lands, who loves birds and above 

 all others the " garden-ouzel " of his home ? A mission- 

 ary writes that there is no living thing in Samoa 

 which gives him so much the home feeling as this 

 bird — its blackbird, Merula samoensis. The English 

 spring is recalled to another in Ceylon by the ouzel 

 of that country. Yet another wanderer in Somali- 

 land is delightfully reminded of home by the native 

 blackbird. And doubtless others have had the same 

 feeling produced in them by other blackbirds in 

 other regions — in Siberia; in Cuba, in the Amazo- 

 nian forests; in the Andes and the Himalayas; and 

 in Burma, Japan, Formosa, the Philippines, New 

 Guinea, Borneo, Java, Fiji, New Hebrides, Norfolk 

 Island, the Louisiades, and other islands and countries 

 too many to name. 



