CHAPTER II. 
THE BLACKBIRD 
(Turdus merma). 
“ 0 Blackbird sing me something well: 
While all the neighbours shoot thee round, 
I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground 
Where thou may’st warble, eat and dwell. 
Yet tho’ I spared thee all the spring, 
Thy sole delight is, sitting still, 
With that gold dagger of thy bill, 
To fret the summer jenneting. 
A golden bill! the silver tongue 
Cold February loved, is dry: 
Plenty corrupts the melody 
That made thee famous once, when young.” 
Tennyson. 
I have often been askecl by the uninitiated, if the Black¬ 
bird’s strain we were listening to in the last rays of the 
sunset—that song brimming over with woodland life and 
love, even after night had fallen and chided Nature into 
silence—were not that of the Nightingale; and when I 
replied in the negative, my information has been received 
with an unbelieving shake of the head. Yet the Blackbird 
will bear comparison with the Nightingale; though unable 
to grasp the crown, it tries with all its might to vie with 
the queen of songsters ! 
The Blackbird, which I have chosen as the representa- 
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