Blue Thrushes 43 



sky, where the precipices are capped with green table- 

 lands, and pastures bejewelled by anemones, gentians, 

 ranunculus, and all the other beautiful alpine plants ; 

 where cascades falling over giant boulders cool the 

 air, scattering their rainbowed spray around, now on 

 one side and now on another, as the wind selects to 

 blow it. In the faces of the precipices and entrances 

 to caverns, as well as in rock hollows, these birds 

 build their nests, arriving from their winter quarters 

 in Africa to do so, April being the month of their 

 return. 



A lovely bird is the blue thrush, the male being 

 a soft dark grey-blue throughout his plumage, the 

 whole of his head having a tint of old blue china 

 frosted over ; but this brighter colouring is more appa- 

 rent in the breeding season than after the autumnal 

 moult. About the size of an English thrush, but 

 with chat-like manners, flirting his tail up and down. 

 His beak is longish, after the shape of a starling, and 

 his song is exceedingly sweet and wild, if you know 

 what I mean. Just as some music is drawing-room 

 music in comparison with many of the wild Hungarian 

 compositions, so with the song of birds, some of which 

 one associates with the dwelling-places of men and the 

 cottages of peasants, whilst others seem to require the 

 roar of the sea or the rush of a mountain torrent to 

 accompany them. The crow of a pheasant, although 

 essentially a sound of the woods, doesn't, through cus- 

 tom, sound nearly so wild as a curlew's cry. There 

 is a more romantic sound in the ringed plover's pipe 

 than in that of the bullfinch. 



