BJjACKBIKD . — Turdus mtmda. 
The common Blackbird is one of the best known of our native songsters. 
It sings beautifully ; and its notes are very full and rich in their tone. 
The nest of this bird is made very early in the spring, and is always carefully 
placed in the centre of some thick bush, a spreading holly-tree being a very 
favourite locality. It is a large, rough, but carefully constructed habitation, 
being made externally of grass, stems, and roots, plastered on the interior with a 
rather thick lining of coarse mud, which, when thoroughly dried, forms a kind of 
rude earthenware cup. A lining of fine grass is placed within the earthen cup, 
and, upon this lining, the five eggs are laid. These eggs are of a light greyish- 
blue ground-colour, splashed, spotted, and freckled over their entire surface with 
brown of various shades and intensity. The colouring of these eggs is extremely 
variable, even those of a single nest being very different in their appearance ; and 
I once took a Blackbird’s nest, in which the eggs were so curiously marked, that 
no one could have decided whether they belonged to a blackbird or a thrush. 
Sometimes the spots are almost wholly absent, and at other times the eggs are 
so covered with reddish-brown marldngs that the ground-colour is hardly 
discernible. 
The colour of the full-grown male Blackbird is rich shining black, and his 
beak is orange. The female is brown. 
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