The most impudent of Birds 133 



set two or three other blackbirds calling in the same way 

 whose existence till then was unsuspected. These calls 

 are quite distinct from his song. 



Sometimes, when sitting on a rail in the shade of a 

 great bush — a rail placed to close a gap — I have had a 

 blackbird come across the meadow and perch just above 

 my head. Till the moment of alighting he was ignorant 

 of my presence, and for a second the extremity of his 

 astonishment literally held him speechless at his own 

 temerity. The next — what an outcry and furious bustle 

 of excitement to escape ! So in the garden here he makes 

 a desperate rush, seizes his prey, and off again twenty or 

 thirty yards, exhibiting an amusing mixture of courage 

 and timidity. This process he will repeat fifty times a 

 day. No matter how terribly frightened, his assurance 

 quickly returns, and another foray follows ; so that you 

 begin by thinking him the most cowardly and end by 

 finding him the most impudent of birds. 



I own I love the blackbird, and never weary of observ- 

 ing him. There is a bold English independence about 

 him — an insolent consciousness of his own beauty. He 

 must somehow have read Shakespeare, for he seems quite 

 aware of his ' orange tawny bill ' and deep black hue. He 

 might really know that he figures in a famous ballad, and 

 that four-and-twenty of his species were considered a dish 

 to set before a king. 



It is a sight to see him take his bath. In a meadow 

 not far from the house here is a shallow but clear streamlet, 

 running down a deep broad ditch overshadowed by tall 

 hemlock and clogweed, arched over with willow, whose 

 leaves when the wind blows and their under-side is exposed 

 give the hedge a grey tint, with maple and briar. Hide 

 yourself here on a summer morning among the dry grass 



