PERCHING BIRDS. 59 



covert, beneath the friendly shade of which it bounds, 

 rather than hops, rapidly and silently away ; but when 

 forced to leave its shelter it flies off hurriedly, with 

 vociferous notes of alarm, though seldom to any great 

 distance. During the winter of 1860-61, the cold was 

 so intense that even the blackbird lost his wariness, and 

 a fine male repeatedly came for food to my kitchen door. 



In gardens, as I have before mentioned, it is equally 

 destructive to fruit as the thrush ; but I remarked that 

 nearly all the birds of this species which I saw in the 

 summer I have named were females, or young birds of 

 the year. 



Their staple food consists chiefly of berries of various 

 kinds, but I have seen them devour earthworms with 

 great avidity, and snails, too, are a favourite repast for 

 them, as with the thrush. At all times of the year, but 

 especially during the winter months, I have often 

 watched them at the bottom of the hedgerows, breaking 

 the snail-shells with repeated blows of their bills, or 

 sometimes by dashing them on a stone, and have been 

 surprised to see the quantity of broken shells they have 

 left in one spot. A writer in Chambers' Edinburgh 

 Journal, quoted in Sweet's Warblers, mentions an 

 instance where a grassplot was quite furrowed and dis- 

 figured by a number of blackbirds, who were found on 

 examination to be feeding on the larvae of the cockchafer 

 with which the ground was infested. 



The blackbird has usually two broods in a season, and 

 sometimes more, generally in the same nest, though 

 occasionally a fresh one is built. I have known an 

 instance where a pair brought up three broods in one 

 season, and in the same nest ; the first brood consisting 

 of five, and the second and third of three each. 



