Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/37

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As a songster this species stands high in my regard, and, though the statement may be treated as open to question, I am not at all sure that every lover of birds is able to discriminate between its notes and those of the Song-Thrush. This, however, by the way. It breeds early in the spring, and yet in actual priority of date yields, to my thinking, to such well-known birds as the Mistle-Thrush, Song-Thrush, Long-tailed Tit, and one or two others. At all events, though there may be very little in it,—a distinction without much of a difference, perhaps,—I have noticed that the earliest nests which meet my eye as year succeeds year are never those of the Blackbird.

It would be superfluous to waste time on a discussion of the nidification of so common a species, for its nest and eggs fall an easy prey to every roving lad, while, in addition, there is scarcely a book on the birds of these islands which does not thoroughly deal with the question. Though the sites chosen for building purposes exhibit an infinite and varied assortment, there is an uniformity about the eggs which is sadly disappointing to the ornithologist, always on the look-out for abnormal coloured specimens. Nevertheless, I have on occasions taken some most richly-marked eggs, approximating to the handsomest type of those of the Ring-Ousel; and in two consecutive years at the same spot in the same hedge I found nests containing five and four eggs respectively, the bold markings of which I have never seen equalled, certainly not surpassed. I mention this case, however, as much with a view of drawing attention to how addicted most birds are to repairing year after year to the same haunts for rearing their young, as to show how the particular type of an egg laid by any species may be pretty confidently looked for again. Because I quote only a single instance, I am not generalising from it alone; I have had proof in plenty of what I say.

The unspotted variety of egg is, I believe, not uncommon, though I have only once met with it, and that was near to Mortimer's Cross, in Herefordshire, in the year 1888. The bird was on the nest, which was placed in a thorn-bush on the brink of the river Lugg; it contained four fresh eggs of a pale apple-