AVALON AND A in^ACKIURD 191 



flute suggestive of the luiman voice, tlie voice in tlie 

 case of the blackbird of an extiuisitely pure and beautiful 

 contralto. The effect is greatly increased by the manner 

 in which the notes are emitted — trolled out leisurely, as 

 if by a being at peace and supremely happy, and able 

 to give the feeling its most perfect expression. 



It is this delicious song of the blackbird — a voice of 

 the loveliest (juality, with an expression derived from 

 its resemblance to a melodious, brightened human voice, 

 uttered in a leisurely and careless manner, as of a person 

 talking sweetly and mingling talk with snatches of song 

 — it is all this combined which has served to make the 

 blackbird a favourite and more to most of us as a 

 songster than any other, not excepting the nightingale. 

 If the editor of some widely-circulated newspaper would 

 put the question to the vote, the blackbird would probably 

 come first, in spite of the myths and traditions which 

 have endeared certain other species to us from child- 

 hood — the cuckoo the messenger of spring, the dove 

 that mourns for its love, and Philomel leaning her 

 breast upon a thorn ; the temple-building martlet, and 

 robin redbreast who in winter comes to us for crumbs 

 and has so great an affection for our kind tliat in woods 

 and desert places he will strew leaves over the friendless 

 bodies of unburied men. 



But, it may be said, we have always had the blackbird 

 in Britain, a resident species, very common and uni- 

 versally distributed — why does it not figure more promi- 

 nently in our old literature? If this can be taken as 

 a test undoubtedly the blackbird comes a long way after 



