74 British Bi^'ds^ 



BLACK-THROATED THRUSH— ( r?/r^//j 

 atrigularis). 



It has only occurred three or four times as a 

 casual visitor. 



BLACKBIRD— (T/zr^^/^ menila). 



Black Ousel, Amzel, Ousel, also pronounced some- 

 times in North Yorkshire, so as to sound like Ussel 

 or Oossel. Merle in Shakespeare. — The Blackbird's 

 tawny bill and sable plumage and sweet mellow song 

 —would one like it as well if he were as lavish of it 

 as the Thrush ? Who does not welcome and love 

 him ? And to a very youthful nest-hunter what a 

 deserving bird the Blackbird is. Making his nest 

 usually in such places and so that detection is not at 

 all a matter of course, and yet not altogether beyond 

 the discernment of inexperienced eyes. The discovery 

 of our first Blackbird's nest is always felt to be a sort 

 of achievement, and one to be spoken of with reason- 

 able self-approbation too. In the hedge, at the 

 bottom of the hedge, on the stump, behind the stump, 

 below the stump, an excrescence on the side of the 

 ragged old tree, in a wall tree, in an evergreen or 

 other thick bush— how often have we found the nest 

 in these and such like places. Once we found one 

 which we set down as made by the untidiest Black- 

 bird that ever lived. It was in a thorn hedge thick 

 and high, and a great rough structure. But a lock of 

 wool, a big one, had been unmanageable and had 

 cauo-ht on the thorns, and the feathered architect 

 could do nothing with it, and there it hung out of the 



