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ABOUT THE BLACKBIRD. 



To tlie same family belongs the Blackbird — another of 

 Nature's favoured and favourite choristers, whose loud, 

 clear, mellow music may be heard amid gardens and or- 

 chards, hedgerows and copses, through the pleasant months 

 of spring and summer, and even late into the autumn in 

 favourable seasons. It builds its nest close to human 

 dwellings or ivy-shrouded walls, in decayed trees or closely- 

 srowin^ bushes. Tlie nest is constructed of moss and 



sticks, plastered inside 

 with mud, and lined 

 with anything soft and 

 dry. Herein the female 

 deposits from three to 

 > six eggs of a greenish 

 blue, shaded and mot- 

 tled with a variety of 

 pale tints. It is an 

 early singer ; one of 

 the joyous heralds, or 

 rather attendants, of 

 " rosy-bosomed spring," 

 with a soft, clear song, of which the peculiarity is its 

 round, flute-like tone. Its food appears to be multifari- 

 ous : grains and seeds of all kinds, larvae, worms, snails, 

 and insects generally. It is to be found in almost every 

 district of the Temperate Zone ; not only throughout 

 Europe, but in Asia, — and its liquid melody pierces the 

 still air that closes round the mountain peaks of the lower 

 Himalaya. The agriculturist regards it, however, with 

 mingled feelings ; for much as he delights in its song, he 



BLACKBIRDS. 



