84 BRITISH BIRDS, THEIB, EGGS AND NESTS. 



brought there by the knowing Thrush and hammered against the 

 well-fixed anvil until they gave way. Every body knows his 

 persevering song, begun at day-dawn in early February, and per- 

 severed in for months of the spring and early summer. Every 

 one knows its trim, neatly-plastered nest, with its warm, solid 

 coating of grass and bents and roots and such like materials. 

 And every body too, knows the four or five fair blue eggs with 

 their tidy black spots, which now and then, however, can hardly 

 be seen at all. Every body also knows how fussy the old mother 

 Thrush is the day her brood quit their nest ; and how, if you 

 catch one of her awkward, ill-flying, soon-tired squad of young 

 ones, she will follow you with much objurgation and no little 

 plaintive entreaty that "a great fellow like you, who ought to be 

 ashamed of yourself for frightening a poor little fluttering crea- 

 ture like that, will put it clown again s oon, and not hurt it, and 

 be a dear, good man, now do, won't you ! " Fig. 10, plate II. 



42. REDWING. (Turdus iliacus). 



Like the Eieldfare, frequent in winter ; but breeds in another 

 country. 



43. BLACKBIRD. (Turdus merula). 



Black Ouzel, Amzel, Ouzel, also pronounced sometimes in North 

 Yorkshire, so as to sound like Ussel or Oossel. Merle in Shaks- 

 peare. The Blackbird's tawny bill and sable plumage and sweet 

 mellow song would one like it as well if he were as lavish of 

 it as the Thrush ? Who does not welcome and love him ? And 

 to a very youthful nest-hunter what a deserving bird the Black- 

 bird is. Making his nest usually in such places and so that 

 detection is not at all a matter of course, and yet not altogether 

 beyond the discernment of inexperienced eyes. The discovery 

 of our first Blackbird's nest is always felt to be a sort of 

 achievement, and one to be spoken of with reasonable self- 

 approbation too. In the hedge, at the bottom of the hedge, on 

 the stump, behind the stump, below the stump, an excresence on 

 the side of the ragged old tree, in a w^ll tree, in an evergreen 

 or other thick bush how often have we found the nest in these 

 and such like places. Once we lound one which we set down 

 as made by the imtidiest Blackbird that ever lived. It was in a 

 thorn hedge thick and high, and a great rough structure. But 

 a IOCK of wool, a big one, had been unmanageable and had 

 caught on the thorns, and the feathered architect could do 

 nothing with it, and there it hung out of the nest-wall a thick 

 tangle, inches long, and making the nest as conspicuous as if 

 a flag had been stuck just above it. How the eggs vary in 

 sliade, markings, size, &c., I have already noticed at a former 



