ORIGINAL SKETCHES OF BRITISH BIRDS. 17 



There is one feature in the life-history of the Blackbird on 

 which I have not commented, but to which I should like to just 

 cursorily allude before bringing this particular sketch to a close. 

 I refer to a tendency on the part of individual birds to indulge 

 in mimicry ; and though it has been very seldom indeed that I 

 have without shadow of misgiving detected one uttering notes 

 that were alien to the species, I met with a very noteworthy 

 instance — quite recently in the Bala district — of a Blackbird 

 copying the notes of a Curlew. The imitator sang from the 

 same eminence on several consecutive afternoons during the 

 month of May in 1895, and, though the reproduction of the 

 borrowed tones was not so true to the original as that essayed 

 by many a Starling in the same locality, it was impossible to 

 close one's ears to the fact that for once in a way I had made the 

 acquaintance of a Blackbird that not only took delight in mim- 

 icry, but modelled its refrain on the lines of that of which it had 

 almost daily experience. 



It may well be that the tuneful lay of the Blackbird is com- 

 menced at different seasons in different parts of the country, — I 

 mean that the species will probably be heard in full song some 

 days earlier in the spring of the year in a southern county like 

 Hampshire, for instance, than in the more northerly regions of 

 the British Islands. Considerations of this kind may not un- 

 naturally be held to detract from the value of any given date 

 respecting the first heard song of any particular species; but, as 

 a comparative guide to my brother field-naturalists who take 

 pleasure in noting the humblest details where birds are concerned, 

 I may incidentally observe that I have never heard the Blackbird 

 J at the zenith of his musical powers in Leicestershire previously 

 s to February 20th, nor, I may add, the Chaffinch previously to 

 February 19th. In this connection, however, much will obviously 

 depend on the atmospheric conditions prevailing from year to 

 year. 



Zool. 4th ser. vol. III., January, 1899 



