MERULID.E. 
2t) 
on the ground the Blackbird runs liglitly, and looks timidly 
about, and while searching for worms and other ground 
insects, frequently raises and depresses its tail with sudden 
jerks, accompanied by a lateral expansion of the tail-feathers. 
The song of this species is less varied than that of the 
song thrush, but the tones are rich, soft, and mellow. It 
is said not to sing so early in the year as some other of our 
Merulid(E. Bechstein considers its period of singing in a 
wild state to be restricted to spring and summer months, 
commencing with hlarch, but when caged it sings nearly 
all the year. 
The food of the Blackbird varies with the season, and 
consists in spring and summer of insects and fruits; in 
autumn and winter berries form great part of their sub¬ 
sistence, together with the larvae of insects, which they seek 
for beneath dead leaves or in moist and shady places. 
The Blackbird is usually seen alone, and never associates 
in flocks; the parents and the young family are- only seen 
together for a short period after the latter quit the nest, 
and then disjierse. They are quarrelsome in disposition, 
and in spring the male bird is very jealous of the approach 
of any other of the feathered race to the locality he has 
chosen for himself. 
The Blackbird is an early breeder, often preceding the 
song thrush. Its nest is erected about three or four feet 
from the ground in a whin or thorn-bush, in copse or hedge¬ 
rows, and formed much like that of the missel thrush, as 
far as regards the interior lining of grass and the Avail of clay, 
but the outside is less ornamented Avith moss and lichens. 
In the specimen before us, the exterior is interwoven Avith 
dry fern, the stalks of grasses, and a little green moss ; the 
inside mattress, Avhich is two inches thick in some parts, con¬ 
sists of finer grasses mixed Avith skeleton holly leaves. We 
have seen the nest of a Blackbird so neatly embedded in a 
