100 THE BIRD OF SOCIETY. 



For several days the feeding goes on, till the 

 youngsters' tails have fully grown out, and one 

 cannot tell them from the mother, and then 

 some morning the student creeps into the black- 

 bird nook, and finds it strangely quiet, and the 

 whole family gone. It is probably quite broken 

 up, the father has resumed his bachelor ways 

 in the society of his kind, and the full grown 

 young of the neighborhood are enjoying life in 

 their own fashion in a flock by themselves. 



The summer home life of the blackbird is 

 over, and you will seek him in vain in the nook. 

 Henceforth it is the open country and the 

 cornfields where he is to be found, under many 

 names, but uneasy and voluble as ever, and 

 here we will not follow him. 



The noises a blackbird will make are of 

 great variety, more than one would suspect who 

 has not studied him in confinement. His close 

 acquaintance with all the sounds a bird will 

 make and the emotions indicated by the differ- 

 ent cries and calls is perhaps the most useful 

 knowledge to be gained by keeping him in cap- 

 tivity. The blackbird in the house has made 

 every slightest sound familiar, and you never 

 mistake him for any other, however far-off or 

 well-concealed. 



The song of this bird has been variously 

 characterized, but rarely appreciated. It is, in 



