104 THE BIRD OF SOCIETY. 



pause. His morning song is the "h' wa-ker-ee " 

 alone at intervals of a minute or less. In happy 

 captivity he will sing thus for an hour, while 

 yet the room is dark, and before he touches 

 food. 



I spoke of the blackbird's fondness for water. 

 In a cage it is impossible to keep more than a 

 quarter of an inch of water in his dish. This 

 element is simply irresistible. The first thing 

 he does is to spatter as much out as he can, and 

 then with every mouthful of food, before and 

 after and in the middle of his eating, he wants 

 water. Seeds he cracks over the dish and gath- 

 ers the fragments as they float ; of mocking-bird 

 food he takes a beakful and deliberately drops 

 it in the water and eats the particles daintily 

 from the top. 



He is the only bird I have seen pay particu- 

 lar attention to bathing his feet, but my black- 

 bird will stand on the edge of his bathing dish, 

 fill his beak with water and pass it down over 

 each toe in succession, letting the water flow 

 over it, and apparently scraping the whole 

 length carefully. I have watched this very 

 closely while not three feet from him. 



The same bird learned in a few days to know 

 his regular attendant, and while remaining for 

 months quite wild on the approach of the gen- 

 tleman of the family, whom he saw every day, 



