HE ORNITHOLOGIST. 



s? *? 



_2- 



VOL. 1. 



TWIN BLUFFS, WIS., DEC, 1885. 



No. 7. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



THE BLACKBIRD. 



(Turdus Merula.) 



Common throughout the country 

 and remaining with us all the year 

 round it is no wonder that the Black- 

 bird enjoys so large of public favor. 

 His loud and melodious voice which 

 may be heard wherever there is 

 sufficient cover to screen him from 

 too intrusive observation, and his 

 strikingly handsome appearance 

 combine to secure for him a general 

 welcome. The plumage is very 

 beautiful being a glossy black in the 

 adult male, the bill and orbits of the 

 eyes bright yellow. The female is 

 blackish brown above, breast red- 

 dish brown faintly spotted- with a 

 darker tint and the bill and eggs 

 dark. During the first year the male 

 resembles the female in color. 



The ordinary song, which con- 

 tinues at intervals from early spring 

 until the moulting season, is remark- 

 ably clear and full of a succession 

 of detached notes with intervals 

 between. The bird is also possessed 

 of imitative power and has been 

 known to conterfeit the crowing of 

 a cock and the nightingales song 

 Avith considerable accuracy. When 

 disturbed the blackbird flies off 

 uttering a long and peculiar chuckle 

 half of alarm half of defiance which 

 serves as a warning to all the birds 

 and other game in the vicinity and 

 consequently is exceedingly irritat- 

 ing to the sportsman whose mark 

 frequently takes alarm at a critical 

 moment. 



During the summer months the 

 blackbird pays a good deal of atten- 

 tion to the fruit in garden and 

 orchard and by his unceasing de- 



predations therein often brings upon 

 himself the vengeance of the garden- 

 er. As soon as the first indications 

 of spring appear the blackbirds com- 

 mence nesting operations retiring to 

 some secluded spot such as a holly 

 plantation in which tree they delight 

 to build as it affords a protection 

 from almost every kind of enemy 

 except the rapacious school-boy. I 

 have found nests containing eggs as 

 early as the middle of March when 

 the leaf buds on the hedges had 

 hardly begun to burst. The middle 

 of April, however, seems to be the 

 time selected by the majority for 

 commencing to build in sober earnest 

 and from that time up till the end 

 of June the eggs can be procured in 

 great abundance. 



The nest is nearly always placed 

 with a view to concealment and 

 although large is in some cases 

 by no means easy to detect. It 

 seldom, however, escapes the ob- 

 servation of a practiced hand al- 

 though a novice might easily pass it 

 by. The sites chosen are very vai'i- 

 ous and the material with which it 

 is constructed is often carefully 

 chosen to match with the surround- 

 ings. On a fallen trunk against the 

 side of a living tree, on a stump, in 

 a hedge, at the roots of the hedge, 

 sometimes in the cavity of a decayed 

 tree the nest may be found. High 

 up among the boughs it is sometimes 

 placed and many an inexperienced 

 nest hunter has tackled a tough 

 climb only to find to his disgust that 

 the reward of his toil was a thriving 

 young family of blackbirds. The 

 nest itself is built of bent roots and 

 twigs lined with mud and clay 

 so as to form when dry a hard and 

 substantial wall. This is lined 



