8 
Apropos of these light-coloured eggs, 
f Blackbirds built their nest in 
their eggs were remarkable 
similar to the eggs of the Starling, pure and spotless. 
Dixon writes that *in Derbyshire, for three successive years, а pair 0 
a spreading laurel, in exactly the same situation yearly; and each season 
for being pale blue and spotless. This pair of birds produced during this period some thirty eggs, 
all similar in colour, thus affording considerable proof that the colour of birds' eggs is to a great 
extent hereditary. I have known similar instances with the Starling, the Titmouse, and the Robin, 
where for several seasons the eggs have possessed certain peculiar characters. The eggs vary from. 
1:35 to l inch in length, and in breadth from -9 to 79 inch. The Blackbird usually rears two, 
and sometimes even three broods in a year, nests containing newly laid eggs not unfrequently being 
found in July and early in August. The young birds are fed on worms, snails, grubs, and insects ; 
and the parent bird tends them but a short time after they quit the nest. When visiting the nest 
with food, both male and female birds are extremely cautious; and should they obtain a glimpse of 
any intruder, they will sometimes fly restlessly about for hours with the food in their beaks rather 
than betray the site of the nest. Both the male and female bird assist in hatching the eggs and 
rearing the young; but the female is by far the most frequently found upon the nest; and she 
conveys the greater part of the food to the young as well. In the rearing-season the male Blackbird 
sometimes warbles as he flies through the air to and from the nest." 
Nestling. General colour above rufous-brown, the head and back streaked with rufescent centres 
to the feathers, which have blackish margins; lower back, rump, and upper tail-coverts dusky 
blackish-brown, the latter mesially streaked and broadly edged with rufous; wing-coverts blackish- 
brown, with distinct triangular spots of rufous, smaller and nearly obsolete on the greater series ; 
primary-coverts, quills, and tail blackish-brown; sides of face and sides of neck brown streaked 
f body dull rufescent, the feathers edged with dusky brown, especially 
with rufous; under surface o 
haft-lines are evident, as they are also on the flank-feathers 
distinct on the breast, where whitish s 
and under tail-coverts, being very distinct on the latter. 
Adult male. General colour above and below black, 
yellow ; feet and claws dark brown or black; iris hazel; 
culmen 1:0, wing 5:05, tail 9:7, tarsus 155, 
Young males after their first moult can generally be recognized by their black bill, but not 
invariably, for І have examined specimens killed in the first winter in which the bill is yellow, 
with the culmen and tomia more or less black. A surer way of distinguishing a young male Black- 
bird from an old one in the winter plumage is by the brown wings, the primary-coverts and 
primaries being always dark brown in the immature birds. The black on the under surface of the 
body is also never so pure, and even in the succeeding spring remains of brown edgings to the breast- 
feathers may be traced. 
In the first winter the young males display great diversity of plumage, and scarcely two 
individuals are alike, the feathers of the under surface being edged with rufous-brown, which fades 
to buff, or even to dull white. The throat is often white, streaked with black, and the breast- 
The bill is sometimes yellow, sometimes black, and 
feathers sometimes show whitish shaft-lines. 
often parti-coloured. Тһе black plumage of the first spring is intensified by the abrasion of the 
pale edgings to the feathers of the under surface, of which, however, some traces can always 
d often a little patch of light-edged feathers remains, general on the 
including the wings and tail : bill orange- 
eyelid orange. Total length 10 inches, 
be distinguished, an 
fore-neck. 
The greater or less amount of pale edging on the breast-feathers seems to me to depend on 
the vigour of the bird, and a very curious specimen is in the British Museum: it was shot by 
myself at Avington in Hampshire in November, and is apparently a perfectly old male. It had 
evidently been seized by a cat or а hawk, and could not fly, as the whole of the flight-feathers of 
