62 
PICTURES OF BIRD LIFE. 
gives laundry^maids a caution to look after their “ lesser linen” when the kite builds. 
It is occasionally needful also with the Blackbird. Mr. Dixon relates an instance of 
a quantity of fine linen laid out on a grass-plot to bleach. Among these articles 
was a lady's cap trimmed with very expensive lace. Towards nightfall, when the 
linen was collected, the cap was missing. A search took place, inquiry was made, 
but no trace of the missing article could be discovered. The matter was forgotten, 
until, after some time, the gardener, on cutting a thick yew-hedge, discovered the 
cap. A Blackbird had carried it off to weave into the coarse fibres and grass which 
formed the outside of its nest. The nest itself was beautiful with this novel deco¬ 
ration. It was removed, put under a glass case, and formed an object of great 
interest in the lady’s drawing-room. 
This bird is a favourite with fanciers, though to those who know it in freedom 
and love its wild song—its “ blithe lay,” as Scott rightly calls it—it seems only one 
degree less miserable in its cage than the poor skylark so confined and hung outside 
a window in some noisy street of London. Bechstein describes the song of the caged 
Blackbird as “ so strong and clear that in a city it may be heard from one end of 
a long street to the other. Its memory is so good that it will retain several airs at 
once, and it will even repeat little sentences. It is much valued by the lovers of a 
plaintive, clear, and musical song, and may in these respects be preferred to the 
bullfinch, whose voice is softer, more flute-like, but also more melancholy. The price 
of these two birds, if well taught, is about the same.” 
The beginning and end of spring might almost be reckoned from the Black¬ 
bird’s song, So Broderip writes— 
“ The Blackbird piped so loud and clear, 
The thrush the air was filling, 
Above a floating downy cloud 
The heavenward lark was trilling, 
And loudly did the cuckoo call 
As he his way was winging ; ” 
and these are among the best-known sounds of early spring. A poet of greater fame 
associates its close with the cessation of the bird’s song in his pretty idyll, which 
may be quoted as intimately connected with English rural scenery and the haunts of 
the Blackbird— <<T _ , . 
In an English lane, 
By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies; 
Hark! those two in the hazel coppice— 
A boy and a girl, if the good fates please. 
Making love, say— 
The happier they 
