FLOWER-GARDENS AND SONG-BIRDS. 505 



its habits. It is indeed a solitary bird, for it never associates with 

 any other, and only with its own mate in breeding time ; and even 

 then it is often seen quite alone upon the house-top, where it warbles 

 in sweet and plaintive strains, and continues its song as it moves in 

 easy flight from roof to roof. The traveller who is fond of orni- 

 thology may often see this bird on the remains of the Temple of 

 Peace, and occasionally in the Villa Borghese, but much more fre- 

 quently on the stupendous ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, where it 

 breeds in holes of the walls, and always on the Colosseum, where it 

 likewise makes its nest; and, in fine, at one time or other of the 

 day, on the tops of most of the churches, monasteries, and convents, 

 within and without the walls of the eternal city. It lays five eggs of 

 a very pale blue. They much resemble those of our starling. The 

 bird itself is blue, with black wings and tail, the blue of the body 

 becoming lighter when placed in different attitudes. 



Whilst I lodged in the Palazza di Gregorio, this solitary songster 

 had its nest in the roof the celebrated Propaganda, across the street 

 "dei due Macelli," and only a few yards from my window. I longed 

 to get at it, but knowing that the Romans would not understand my 

 scaling the walls of the Propaganda, in order to propagate the his- 

 tory of the solitary thrush, and seeing, at the same time, that the 

 hole at which the bird entered was very difficult of access, I deemed 

 it most prudent to keep clear of the Propaganda, and to try to pro- 

 cure the nest from some other quarter. The many promises which 

 Roman sportsmen had given me of a nest and eggs of the solitary 

 thrush having entirely failed, and I myself not being able to go in 

 quest of them on account of an attack of dysentery, which bore 

 heavy on me, I despaired of obtaining the object of my wishes, and 

 I should have left Italy without either nest or eggs, had not the Rev. 

 Mr Cowie, vice-president of the Scotch College in Rome, exerted 

 himself, as he had already often done, in the cause of natural his- 

 tory. This learned and worthy gentleman sent expressly for a nest 

 to the vineyard of his college. It was found in the roof of the 

 house, and had four eggs in it. The lad who took it had succeeded 

 in capturing the female bird. Having examined the poor captive 

 as minutely as though I had been a custom-house officer, I turned it 

 loose into the world again, and as it flew away I hoped it would 



