Blackbird. 135 



unlike that bird, it subsists in great measure on snails. Now 

 snails must certainly be a nutritious diet; so at least an old 

 parishioner of mine at Yatesbury, now deceased, used to declare, 

 and, acting on that opinion, at some special season of the year, 

 hunted in the banks near his cottage for the common garden 

 snail, and prepared them for his dinner by frying them in the 

 shovel ! Notwithstanding its snail diet, however, I am so far 

 from thinking that the Redwing is hardier than the Fieldfare 

 that I believe it to be the first of all its congeners to succumb 

 under prolonged frost : though it seems strange that both these 

 species, bred in the far north of Europe, should be more sensitive 

 to cold than those which are indigenous here. The Song 

 Thrush, however, is almost as delicate, and one of the first to 

 perish in very severe weather. It has often been reported as 

 breeding in England, but every alleged instance has so far as I 

 know on investigation proved to be a mistake, founded on con- 

 fusion of the species. 



In Germany it is Rothdrossel, ( Red Thrush ;' in Portugal Tordo 

 ruivo, ' Reddish -brown Thrush/ in distinction to Tordo branco, 

 * White Thrush/ as the Thrush, Tordo, is sometimes called ; in 

 Scandinavia Hodvinge Trast, ' Red-wing Thrush / in Spain 

 Nalvis ; and in France le Mauvis. 



36. BLACKBIRD (Turdus menda). 



' The ouzel cock, so black of hue with orange-tawny bill/ as 

 that great observer of nature, Shakespeare, has described it, is so 

 well known that I need say very little about it. In Sweden it is 

 known as Kol Trast, or ' Charcoal Thrush/ and in Somersetshire 

 as the ' Colly bird.' The gardeners know, to their cost, its pen- 

 chant for fruit in the summer, and no devices of theirs will avail to 

 scare it from the gooseberry and raspberry bushes, and the straw- 

 berry-beds, as long as any fruit remains ; but it changes its 

 residence with the season : as soon as wet weather sets in, the 

 blackbirds may be found in the turnip-fields, where they find 

 slugs and snails in abundance ; and in hard weather the hedge- 

 rows and thick bushes are its resort. It is of a shy and restless 



