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devoured, and the body of the Blackbirds disappear with them. I attribute this to the tide of 

 emigration; but, still, where do our breeding-birds and their young go during summer] My 

 theory would be, and take it for what it is worth, that the birds who have successfully reared 

 their young in time, who have not been delayed by robbery, and many of the young, migrate 

 southwards after the breeding-season, to meet the early fruit, and that they gradually advance 

 northwards again in a body, following the ripening haws, and then winter as best they can in 

 their old spring haunts. Constant watching has confirmed my belief in the migratory part of this 

 theory." 



Mr. J. H. Gurney, 

 Blackbirds by Florent Pi 

 " January 

 February 

 March . 

 April . 

 May . . 

 June 

 July . . 

 August . 

 September 

 October 

 November 

 December 



jun., has drawn our attention to the following notes on the food of 

 revost, from observations made in France : — 



. Seeds, spiders, chrysalids. 



. The same. 



. Worms, buds of trees, grubs. 



. Insects, worms, grubs. 



. Cockchafers, worms. 



. Worms, grubs, fruit. 



. All sorts of insects, worms, and fruit. 



. The same. 



. The same. 



. Worms, chrysalids, grubs of butterflies. 



. Seeds, corn, and chrysalids. 



. The same." 



Mr. Halting, in his ' Ornithology of Shakespeare,' gives two instances of the mention of the 

 Blackbird by the great poet. He says : — " The attractiveness of the Blackbird was not over- 

 looked by Shakespeare, who has mentioned him in one of his songs : — 



" ' The Ouzel-cock, so black of hue, 

 With orange-tawny bill/ 



Midsummer Night's Dream, Act iii. sc. 1. 



When Justice Shallow inquires of Justice Silence, 'And how doth my Cousin'?' he is answered — 



" ' Alas ! a Black Ouzel, Cousin Shallow' 



{King Henry IV., Part 2, Act iii. sc. 2) — 



an expression which was probably equivalent to the modern phrase, ' a black sheep.' " Mr. G. 

 Dawson Rowley has also very kindly drawn our attention to a little note on the Blackbird, which 

 occurs in Mr. J. C. Jeaffreson's ' Book about the Clergy ' (ii. p. 296). " In his life of Cranmer, 

 Strype says that in the year 1541 the Archbishop, with the consent of the other Archbishops 

 and most of the Bishops and divers other Deans and Archdeacons, made a constitution for 

 moderating the fare of their tables, viz. that of the greater fish or fowl, such as cranes, swans, 

 turkeys, haddocks, pike, tench, there should be but one in a dish ; of lesser sorts than they, as 

 capons, pheasants, conies, woodcocks, but two ; of lesser sorts still, as of partridges, an archbishop 

 three, a bishop and other degrees under him two. The number of the Blackbirds was also 

 stinted to six at an archbishop's table and to four for a bishop ; but for little birds, as larks, 



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