242 BRITISH BIRDS. 



not unfrequently being found in July and early in August. The young 

 birds are fed on worms, snails, grubs, and insects ; and the parent bird 

 tends them but a short time after they quit the nest. When visiting the 

 nest with food, both male and female birds are extremely cautious ; and 

 should they obtain a glimpse of any intruder, they will sometimes fly 

 restlessly about for hours with the food in their beaks rather than betray 

 the site of the nest. Both the male and female bird assist in hatching 

 the eggs and rearing the young ; but the female is by far the most 

 frequently found upon the nest ; and she conveys the greater part of the 

 food to the young as well. In the rearing-season the male Blackbird 

 sometimes warbles as he flies through the air to and from the nest. 



As a cage-bird the Blackbird is held in high esteem. Poor fellow ! he 

 bears captivity Avell ; and his tuneful melody is often heard in the densest 

 thoroughfares of the busy metropolis as the little jet-black chorister 

 warbles from his prison-home, in seemingly just as joyous a strain as his 

 wild congeners, gladdening the hearts of all who hear it, and doubtless 

 bringing to the mind of many a tired wayfarer rural scenes far away, and 

 brighter and happier times now long past and gone. 



Our Blackbird's nearest relation is the South-Chinese Otizel, Merula 

 mandarina, which has the upper parts very dark brown, never quite black. 

 There are several other species of Merula in which the male is quite black 

 one in Central America, three or four in South America, and one on 

 the Samoa Islands in the Pacific Ocean ; but these may be distinguished 

 at a glance from their Palaearctic relation by their yellow legs. 



As its name implies, the Blackbird is entirely black, with an orange 

 bill, a ring of orange round the eye, black legs, and hazel irides. Shake- 

 speare dispenses with long pages of description, and gives his diagnosis 

 in a single sentence : ' 



" The Ouzel-cock, so black of hue, 

 With orange-tawuy bill." 



Midsummer Nights Dream, Act iii. ac. 1. 



The female bird differs greatly from the male, is brown with a dark 

 brown bill, and is more or less rufous on the throat and breast, which are 

 streaked with dusky black. The young birds in nestling plumage have 

 most of the feathers with pale shaft-streaks, dark tips to those of the upper 

 parts, and the under plumage with dark bars. After the first moult 

 the young birds resemble their parents ; but the males have the bill black, 

 and the females are suffused on the throat and breast with vinous red. 

 It is worthy of remark that both immature birds and old males and females 

 have a few fine hairs on the hind neck, growing quite independent of the 

 feathers; so, too, have its near ally M. mandarina and many other 

 Ouzels. 



