THE THRUSH GENUS 365 



writer of the account states the opinion that the imaginary birds were 

 regarded as trespassers on the private grounds of the real birds. 

 They were violating the sacred rights of property. But in both 

 cases the initial cause of warfare may very well have had a sexual 

 character. 



The song-thrush, when fighting, frequently utters snatches of his 

 song between the rounds. The blackbird probably does so also, as the 

 habit is common to many species, the wren and the robin providing 

 familiar instances. The song of both species is too well known to need 

 description. The song-thrush is a master-singer ; his music rivals that 

 of the nightingale's. It reaches less high flights, but, on the other hand, 

 is free from the somewhat harsh notes with which the latter songster is 

 accustomed to intersperse his melody. The blackbird's is much more 

 limited in its range, but to my mind there is not in the song of the 

 thrush anything so beautiful as those few careless flute-like notes 

 that seem almost to come unbidden from his throat. Like our 

 other summer Thrushes, and more so than they, he has the pretty 

 habit of uttering his song " the while he swings from tree to tree." l 

 It is true that the blackbird soon comes to the end of his repertoire ; 

 and he makes his limitations more obvious by the discords which 

 sometimes close his lay, but distance here, as in things visual, if it 

 does not lend enchantment, will soften disenchantment. 



The loud strains of the ring-ouzel and mistle-thrush, though 

 inferior to the music of the song-thrush, are still unmistakably 

 thrush-like in the mellow richness of some of their notes. They are 

 said to gain an added charm from the nature of the surroundings in 

 which they are uttered. But there are few who have heard either the 

 ring-ouzel, perched on an old grey lichened boulder, fling his wild 

 melody across the moorlands, or the mistle-thrush, erect and defiant 

 on some high naked bough, meet the storm with bold exultant notes, 

 who would think it was the song alone that gained ; moorland and 

 woodland win an added charm, fleeting it is true, but that in ceasing 



1 Nora Hopper. 



