PERCHING BIRDS. 59 
covert, beneath the friendly shade of which it bounds, 
rather than hops, rapidly and silently away ; but when 
forced to leave its shelter it flies off hurriedly, with 
vociferous notes of alarm, though seldom to any great 
distance. During the winter of 1860-61, the cold was 
so intense that even the blackbird lost his wariness, and 
a fine male repeatedly came for food to my kitchen door. 
In gardens, as I have before mentioned, it is equally 
destructive to fruit as the thrush ; but I remarked that 
nearly all the birds of this species which I saw in the 
summer I have named were females, or young birds of 
the year. 
Their staple food consists chiefly of berries of various 
kinds, but I have seen them devour earthworms with 
great avidity, and snails, too, are a favourite repast for 
them, as with the thrush. At all times of the year, but 
especially during the winter months, I have often 
watched them at the bottom of the hedgerows, breaking 
the snail-shells with repeated blows of their bills, or 
sometimes by dashing them on a stone, and have been 
surprised to see the quantity of broken shells they have 
left in one spot. <A writer in Chambers’ Edinburgh 
Journal, quoted in Sweet's Warblers, mentions an 
instance where a grassplot was quite furrowed and dis- 
figured by a number of blackbirds, who were found on 
examination to be feeding on the larve of the cockchafer 
with which the ground was infested. 
The blackbird has usually two broods in a season, and 
sometimes more, generally in the same nest, though 
occasionally a fresh one is built. J have known an 
instance where a pair brought up three broods in one 
season, and in the same nest; the first brood consisting 
of five, and the second and third of three each. 
