BLACK THRUSH, OR BLACKBIRD. 91 



of stalkg of grasses, supported or strengthened by some twigs 

 or stems of herbaceous plants, and interwoven with mosses. 

 This framework, coarsely intertwined, is lined with a thin 

 layer of mud, within which is a more neatly arranged layer of 

 fibrous roots, slender stalks of grasses, decayed leaves, and 

 hypna. The interior is hemispherical, about four inches in 

 breadth at the mouth, and three in depth. The nests however 

 vary considerably as to the materials of which they are com- 

 posed. In one before me, within a loose mass of grasses, roots, 

 and twigs, is a firm cup composed of blades and stems of soft 

 grasses rudely interwoven and compacted with sandy mud, 

 which has been applied in pellets, and having a thickness of a 

 quarter of an inch. Within this is a shell of about the same 

 thickness, composed of fine fibrous roots and slender grasses 

 well interwoven, especially at the mouth. The diameter with- 

 in is four inches, the depth two and a half. In another, the 

 mud-cup is formed of fine light-brown earth, mixed with 

 hypna ; the inner cup of fine grasses and decayed holly leaves. 

 Its dimensions are the same. The eggs are generally five, or 

 from four to six, pale blueish green, freckled with pale umber, 

 the markings closer towards the larger end, where they some- 

 times form an obscure ring. They differ in form from very 

 broad to elongated oval, the longest being about an inch and 

 two-twelfths by ten-twelfths, the shortest an inch and half 

 a twelfth by ten- twelfths and a quarter. Generally however 

 they are of a much longer form than those of the Song Thrush. 

 Two broods are commonly reared, the first being abroad to- 

 wards the end of May, the second by the middle of July. It 

 appears however that sometimes a greater number of broods is 

 reared. Mr Blyth states in the Naturalist, Vol. Ill, p. 152, 

 that a pair built four successive nests in 1837 upon the island 

 in St James''s Park, and succeeded in rearing seventeen young 

 ones, the three first broods consisting of five each, the last of 

 two only ; and that another pair which he knew of raised three 

 broods in a garden near his residence. 



Mr Weir has favoured me with the following notice respect- 

 ing a matrimonial union between a Blackbird and a Thrush : — 

 " That birds in a state of confinement may be induced, by the 



