BLACK BIRDS. 7 



Eggs. 4-6, greenish-blue, spotted, streaked and 

 blotched with pale reddish - brown, but sometimes 

 clouded heavily with orange-brown at the larger 

 end ; 1-1 x -85 inch (plate 121). 



Nest Of rootlets, coarse grass, plastered with 

 mud, lined with fine grass, and placed usually in 

 hedges and holly- bushes. 



Distribution. General. 



The Blackbird is the only bird with plumage en- 

 tirely black which habitually hops. It is a skulking 

 bird of the woodside, hedgerow, and shrubbery, but 

 best observed as a winter visitor to our gardens. It 

 then sneaks through fence or hedge-bottom, and hops 

 out on to the grass, tacking erratically to right and 

 left, and at each pause posing with head attentively 

 aslant and plumage tightly dressed. The object of its 

 search is generally a worm, which the bird shakes 

 vigorously ere bolting it whole. If seen in the act of 

 alighting, the Blackbird may be identified by the man- 

 ner in which the long, elegant tail is thrown up- 

 wards, as if the bird were overbalanced by it. When 

 detected in hiding, the Blackbird rushes out with a 

 wild, cackling cry. It has another loud, more metallic 

 cry, always to be heard when the bird is about to settle 

 down for the night It may be written ' Pick ! pick ! 

 pick ! ' and is sometimes repeated scores of times in 

 succession. The flight is strong but low, and the bird 

 usually hugs the ground or a hedgerow for cover. 

 The song, consisting partly of short repeated phrases, 

 partly of a desultory warbling, is remarkable for the 

 lethargic ease and smoothness with which it is de- 



