! 'THE 'BLACKBIRD. 



95 



The favourite of our woods and gardens (perhaps not 

 of the gardener !), how black his plumage, how orange his 

 beak, and how the copse rings with his alarm-note when 

 a cat or a fox, an owl or a hawk, or any other enemy to 

 his race, crosses his path or nears his nest ; but how 

 mellow and sweet is his song as he tunes his dulcet pipe, 

 morning and evening, to his mate sitting on her well- 

 concealed nest in holly or ivy ! The nest differs from the 

 thrush's in being lined with fine bents or soft grass. The 

 eggs, four to five, are greenish-grey ground, mottled with 

 reddish spots. 



In the early Jacobite days the blackbird was a symbol 



THE BLACKBIRD. 



of the cause, in allusion to Charles the Second's swarthy 

 complexion. One of the stanzas of an old Scotch song runs 

 thus : 



" Once in fair England my blackbird did flourish, 



He was the chief blackbird that in it did spring ; 

 Prime ladies of honour his person did nourish, 

 Because he was the true son of a king." 



The old name Merle, by which this bird was formerly 

 known, is derived from the Latin merula. 

 Drayton calls it "the mirthful merle." 



