THE BLACKBIRD 49 



beauty. Like his companion of the garden and shrubbery, the throstle, 

 he is a skulker, and on the least alarm takes shelter under the thickest 

 evergreen within reach. When disturbed from his hiding-place he 

 rushes out impetuously with a great noise, making the place re- 

 sound with his loud, clear, ringing and musical chuckle. But he is 

 not so inveterate a skulker and in love with the shade as the 

 other. You will sometimes find him on hillsides and open moors, 

 or nesting in the scanty tufts of sea-campion on rocky islands where 

 he has for only neighbour the rock-pipit. But above all situations 

 he prefers the garden and well-planted ground, and in such places 

 is most abundant. His food is the same as that of the throstle, 

 and is taken in much the same way : he listens for the earthworms 

 working near the surface of the ground, and hammers the snails 

 against a stone to break the shells. In the fruit season he is very 

 troublesome to the gardener, and greedily devours strawberries, 

 cherries, currants, gooseberries and mulberries. 



The song of the male begins early in spring, and is mostly heard 

 during the early and late hours of the day. Its charm consists in 

 the peculiar soft, rich, melodious quality of the sound, and the placid, 

 leisurely manner in which it is delivered. But the manner varies 

 greatly. ' He sings in a quiet, leisurely way, as a great master should,' 

 says Kichard Jefferies ; unfortunately, the great master too often 

 ends his performance unworthily with an unmusical note, or he 

 collapses ignominiously at the close. John Burroughs, the American 

 writer on birds, thus describes it : 'It was the most leisurely strain 

 I heard. Amid the loud, vivacious, work-a-day chorus it had an 

 easeful dolce far niente effect. . . It constantly seemed to me as if 

 the bird was a learner, and had not yet mastered his art. The tone 

 is fine, but the execution is laboured ; the musician does not handle 

 his instrument with deftness and confidence.' Perhaps it may be 

 said that, of all the most famed bird-songs, that of the blackbird is 

 the least perfect and the most delightful. 



The blackbird places his nest in the centre of a hedge or in an 

 evergreen ; it is formed of herbs, roots, and coarse grass, plastered 

 inside with mud, and lined with fine dry grass. Four to six eggs 

 are laid, light greenish blue in ground-colour, mottled with pale 

 brown. Two or three, and sometimes as many as four, broods are 

 reared in the season. 



In the northern and more exposed parts of the country the 

 blackbird has a partial migration, or shifts his quarters to more 

 sheltered localities in the winter. 



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