264 BRITISH AND EUROPEAN BIRDS. 



You may prattle of cities as much as you please ; 



Of their splendour and wealth all how fine ! 

 I prefer living here with my mate at my ease ; 



Where is happiness equal to mine ? 0^) 



(+7) Order, Passkres, (Linn.) Blackbird. 

 The Blackbird, Tardus Merula, (Linn.) Colly, Merle* or 

 Amselj is almost too well known to need description. The 

 male is wholly of a deep black when full-grown, at which state 

 it arrives the next spring after the snmmer in which it is hatched, 

 when the bill and the orbits of the eyes are deep yellow. The fe- 

 male is not so intense a black as the male; nor is the bill so deep 

 a yellow : the ditference in the colour of the bills being the 

 principal characteristic of the sex. It is said there arc three 

 other varieties of this bird ; one with the head white ; another 

 with the body white ; and the third variegated with black and 

 white; but they are not common in England. It feeds chiefly 

 on snails and worms, and, occasionally, on insects and berries. 

 In a domestic state it may be fed on bread and niilk, and bread 

 and water, and even flesh. It is at all seasons a solitary bird. 

 Found almost every where in this country, in the neighbourhood 

 of woods, trees, and hedges ; rarely on open heaths or downs. 

 It also inhabits Europe and Asia. Lays five dirty-green spotted 

 eggs. Nest composed externally of dried grass, or moss, and 

 sometimes other materials; plastered inside with clay, and then 

 lined with dried grass. See the Introduction. See also note (43.) 

 '* Take thy delight in yonder goodly tree, 



Where the sweet merle and warbling mavis be." 



Drayton's Owl. 



* The terms merle for the blackbird, andmat'u for the thrush, 

 are used chiefly by our poets : 



" Merry is it in the good green wood, 

 When the mavis and male are singing, 

 When the deer sweeps by and the hounds are in cry, 

 And the hunter's horn is ringing." 



Sir Walter Scott's Lady of the Lake. 



