32 OUR xati\t: songsters. 



research, I turned up a piece of turf with tlie spade, 

 and found it almost swarming "with the cockchafer 

 grubs of various sizes ; and this circumstance con- 

 firmed my suspicion, that it was for the purpose of 

 feeding upon these larva?, that the blackbirds liad 

 made such havoc of the grass plot. They per- 

 formed, in short, in this case, precisely the same 

 service in destroying the cockchafer gnib, that thi- 

 rooks are so well known to do. Tlie turf, I sliould 

 add, soon regained its wonted verdure, tlie injured 

 patches being scarcely to be distinguished from 

 the rest of the grass plot." 



This ■\^Titer adds, that this fact confinns him in 

 the opinion, tliat birds which chietly subsist on 

 vegetables, yet vary this diet with some portion of 

 animal food; as at the very time when tlie black- 

 birds were so busy in devouring the gi*ubs of the 

 cockchafer, the garden was full of cui'rants and 

 gooseberries, which form so agi-eeable a meal to 

 these birds. 



Our blackbird is the Merle of our olden poets, 

 and both this and the scientific name Merula are 

 said to be derived from mera, or solitary, because 

 the bird is not gregarious. The Scotch still call it 

 the Merle. Thus Graham says, 



