266 THE BLACKBIRD. 



returned, as if she knew her treasure would be robbed. As 

 another proof of the various situations of birds' nests, I got a 

 blackbird's with five eggs in an old fishing boat lying on the 

 East Bents, another with ripe young ones on the very top of the 

 broken stump of a willow tree, eight feet from the ground ; 

 another in a large apple tree, with five eggs, fifteen feet up. 

 But the strangest blackbird's nest I ever saw was one on the 

 stump of a hedge, two feet from the ground, with five young 

 ones ; it was nearly all made of paper. I counted ten pieces, 

 some as large as 10 by 8 inches. It looked just like a rough 

 paper nest made by printer boys to make a fool of nest-making. 

 The only one I ever got like it was one in a broken gas lamp in 

 the passage leading to the gymnasium, which was entirely 

 composed outside of shavings, as this one was of paper, as if 

 made by an apprentice joiner, while the alterations were going 

 on. It was built in the bottom of the lamp, with the short gas 

 bracket projecting over it — yet the young ones got leave to fly. 

 On the 23rd of April 1889 I got a nest with four eggs on the 

 top of some old windows in a joiner's woodyard in Greenside Place, 

 within 20 yards of a mavis's, with five young ones, on a pear tree 

 close by, which got leave to fly on the 27th. These two nests 

 are a fair example of the time these thrushes breed — the 

 blackbird sitting on eggs as the young mavises were flying. In 

 a wild state a male blackbird and a female mavis have been known 

 to breed and rear their young, but the usual course of Nature 

 was no further interfered with, as hybrids have no reproduction of 

 species. Such freaks of sportive nature do not affect the order 

 of creation, which ordains, with unerring certainty, like the 

 tide — "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther" — that each 

 bird and beast, insect and fish shall continue " after their kind," 

 as created, if not extirpated. There are also such freaks in 

 nature as white blackbirds. I have a male stuffed, whose head 

 and neck are white, and on the 1st of June 1891 a woman at 

 the Grange, two miles from St Andrews, caught a perfectly 

 pure white one and a black one — off the same nest — by throwing 

 her apron over them, as they could scarcely fly. These were all 

 she saw of the brood, the rest either killed or strayed, having 

 been probably too early scared from their nest. She put them 

 in a cage in the washing-house ; the old birds came and fed them 

 for a fortnight. I saw the white one on the 9th of December in 

 its cage ; it was strong and healthy, perfectly formed, and pure 

 white, not a dark feather in it. It had moulted, and, being a 

 male, the bill and the eyelids were becoming yellow, and it had 



