THE ROSE OUZEL. 197 



In confinement the redwing is treated like the preceding ; but it is not 

 much valued, as its song is in no respect agreeable. It always requires 

 fresh water and but little warmth. 



Food, Mode of Taking, Diseases The same as in the preceding species. 



Attractive Qualities. — The song of the mule is as unmelodious as 

 that of the fieldfare. These birds make a great noise when they are col- 

 lected in large flights upon the alders, in March and April, but their war- 

 bling hardly deserves the name of song. I have known but one which 

 succeeded in imitating, though very indifferently, the notes of the song 

 thrush and some loud tones of the nightingale. It is not therefore their 

 song which will gain these birds a place in the house ; but they may please 

 by their familiarity, their patience, their easy motions, and the readiness 

 with which they obey orders. Bird catchers keep them principally as decoy 

 birds. They are good eating. 



THE ROSE OUZEL. 



Tardus roscus, Linn^eits ; Le Merle Couleur de Rose, Bdffon ; Die Rosen- 



farbigedrossel, Bechstein. 



This is a bird which from its beauty certainly merits a 

 place in this work. Its length is nearly eight inches, of which 

 the tail measures three, and the beak one. This latter is 

 black, sometimes lead-coloured, from the base to the middle, 

 and flesh or rose-coloured from the middle to the point ; the 

 iris is whitish ; the shanks are fourteen lines high, lighter or 

 darker flesh-coloured ; the claws are blackish. The head, 

 neck, and throat, are black, with the tips of the feathers white, 

 very much like the starling, and changeable into green, blue, 

 and purple ; the feathers at the top of the head are long and 

 narrow, and rise elegantly into a crest ; the back, the rump, 

 the shoulders, the breast, the belly, and the sides, are of a 

 brigliter or paler rose-colour, according to the age and season. 



The female diff'ers from the male only in being less highly 

 and brilliantly coloured. 



Habitation When wild these birds are to be met with in many parts 



of Europe and Asia. The inhabitants of Aleppo and the neighbourhood 

 see with pleasure the arrival of large flights of them, in the months of 

 July and Augiist, to extirpate the clouds of locusts which then ravage the 

 country. Great numbers are also seen in sprinar on the banks of the Don 

 and Irtish, where they build and find abundance of food ; also on the 

 shores of the Caspian and the banks of the Wolga. In Europe they 

 appear in Sweden as far as Lapland, in England, in Germany, in Switzer- 

 • land, and France : rare indeed in all these countries, but least so in Italy. 



