20 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



quickly and quietly as possible to the scene of the disturbance ; there I saw two 

 cock Blackbirds firmly clutching one another and tearing out feathers by the 

 mouthful, violently flapping the while and so intent upon murder that, until I 

 was almost within reach of them, they were not aware of my approach ; then just 

 as I was meditating a double capture, they saw me, and simultaneously letting go 

 of one another, flew off in opposite directions with loud chattering cries. 



Fighting is not the only sin of which the Blackbird is guilty ; some individuals 

 of the species have ovivorous tendencies : at a house where I was once staying, a 

 pair of Blackbirds had built a nest on a trained plum-tree ; as usual, I had inter- 

 ested myself in noting the time occupied in building and in the deposition of the 

 eggs : on the third day the nest was completed and the hen settled down in it 

 for the night. I rose early in those days, frequently taking a country ramble 

 before breakfast ; that morning, before starting, I looked in the nest, and there 

 was the first egg ; but, when I returned an hour later, the shell alone lay on the 

 earth below the nest. Determined to discover the thief, if possible, I took a pair 

 of opera-glasses upstairs that night, and, getting out of bed about 6 a.m., I 

 waited and watched : presently I heard the cock Blackbird singing, and then he 

 flew on to the end wall of the garden "Chink, chinka chuck, chuck, chuck, chack ; 

 swee ; sivee." Out flew the hen and on to the nest went the old wretch, deliber- 

 ately pecked and picked up the egg, and devoured the contents, dropping the 

 shell as before. This trick was repeated again the following day, and then the 

 hen deserted her nest. 



In all well-wooded districts the Blackbird is extremely abundant, and where 

 wood and water are combined it is so common that, on one occasion, I came across 

 nearly forty nests in the course of a single morning's ramble. In suburban 

 gardens it is also common, but not nearly so much so as the Song- Thrush : this 

 can be easily proved, not merely by the numbers seen, for with so skulking a bird 

 many might be overlooked ; but, by the relative number of nests built in such 

 places in spring, and the largely disproportionate number of Thrushes trapped in 

 winter. 



The nest of the Blackbird is built in the most diverse situations, such as 

 hedges, shrubs, trees, faggot-stacks, holes in walls or rocks, niches in sides of 

 gravel- or chalk-pits, or even in very low banks ; its favourite sites are perhaps 

 in wattle fences overgrown with bramble or ivy, in evergreen shrubs, or on 

 branches of fruit-trees trained against walls. It is a bulky cup-shaped structure, 

 usually placed upon a foundation of twigs, dead leaves, rags, paper, sometimes a 

 draggled quill feather or two, and mud ; the form of the outside walls varies 

 according to the position of the nest ; they are constructed of stalks of grass and 



