THE BLUE-BREAST 129 



about with quick movements, wide-awake eyes and 

 turned-up tail. 



The female blue-breast builds her nest in summer and 

 constructs it of interwoven grasses, generally kept to- 

 gether by the reeds and osier, in the midst of which it is 

 built. At pairing-time, the male takes its flight upwards, 

 fluttering and singing its strain. Then it descends, turn- 

 ing about with the agility of the warbler, and ever chirping 

 and twittering it swings to and fro on some flexible reed. 

 Its chirp is very sweet in pairing-time, but it turns into 

 rather a vulgar cry as soon as the season of courtship and 

 love is over. The young ones are of a blackish brown hue 

 in the beginning; the delicate blue shade of the throat 

 appears only later, after the first moulting, and it is even 

 said that in grown birds this beautiful colour fades in a 

 state of captivity. 



As the summer wears on, the blue-breasts approach 

 gardens and orchards where they find savoury fruit in 

 abundance. The vicinity of man does not frighten them. 

 They become familiar enough to be looked at and admired 

 at leisure, whilst they are picking the elder-berries, of 

 which they are extremely fond. Their taste for that 

 juicy fruit becomes fatal to them and they are frequently 

 the victims of their greediness. The ripe berries of the 

 elder-tree serve as a bait for bird-catchers who use a 

 bird-call and who set lime-twigs for them on the skirts of 

 woods. In the province of Alsace and in the Vosges 



