190 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



shorthand-writer could in a few days have filled a 

 volume with records of its melodies, and they would, 

 I think, have been far more interesting than the seventy 

 odd recorded by Witchell. No person who had listened 

 for half an hour to this bird could believe that these 

 strains were borrowed. They were too many and they 

 came as spontaneously as water gushing from a rock. 

 The bird was in a thorn hedge dividing two grass fields, 

 and there I stood for a long time, how long I do not 

 know, in the fading light, my astonishment and admira- 

 tion growing all the time, and I was like one in a trance, 

 or like the monk in the legend, only my wonderful bird 

 was black instead of white. By-and-by he flew away 

 and that was the last of him, for on other days I 

 searched and listened for him in vain. Perhaps on the 

 very morning after that evening he fell to the gun of 

 some person anxious about the safety of his reddening 

 strawberries — some farmer or cottager who did not 

 know that he was killing an angel. However, a worse 

 fate would have befallen him if one of those who prefer 

 to have their birds in cages had chanced to hear his 

 wonderful song and had proceeded to capture him for 

 exhibition about the country, winning great glory from 

 the "fancy" and perhaps making a thousand pounds out 

 of his prisoner for life. 



This character of the blackbird's music, which I have 

 been discussing — its resemblance to human-made music 

 — is not the whole nor the principal cause of its charm. 

 The charm is chiefly due to the intrinsic beauty of the 

 sound; it is a fluty sound and has that quality of the 



