VII Aristotle on Birds 187 



season, and have by some error attributed it to 

 thrushes in general ? The Fieldfare at the present 

 day breeds in Sweden and Norway, and sparingly 

 also in Germany, Poland, and Bohemia ; but it is not 

 unreasonable to suppose that two thousand years ago 

 it may have bred further south in the forests of the 

 Balkans and Thrace, where Aristotle may have heard 

 of its habits during his residence in Macedonia with 

 Alexander.^ 



Of the Blackbird, another of the thrush tribe, 

 Aristotle has several curious things to tell us. I 

 have already mentioned his error in thinking that all 

 Blackbirds change their colour in winter. He also 

 tells us that this bird nests twice in the year, and that 

 the first eggs or brood are destroyed by the cold, for 

 it is the earliest of all birds to breed. Few of us, I 

 suppose, have failed to notice how often this is 

 actually the case ; the too-eager bird, building in the 

 evergreens in our garden, has to confess itself mis- 

 taken, and to abandon its eggs to the snow and the 

 frost.^ Then he tells us that there are two kinds of 

 Blackbirds : the one is common and quite black, the 

 other is more or less white, and is found in Cyllene 

 in Arcadia, and nowhere else.^ What is the explana- 

 tion of this white Blackbird? Surely that some 

 one of Aristotle's correspondents had sent him word 



1 See Sundevall, op. cit. p. 108. 

 " H. A. r. 13. 1. ^ /*. ix. 19. 1. 



