Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/41

Rh There is one feature in the life-history of the Blackbird on which I have not commented, but to which I should like to just cursorily allude before bringing this particular sketch to a close. I refer to a tendency on the part of individual birds to indulge in mimicry; and though it has been very seldom indeed that I have without shadow of misgiving detected one uttering notes that were alien to the species, I met with a very noteworthy instance—quite recently in the Bala district—of a Blackbird copying the notes of a Curlew. The imitator sang from the same eminence on several consecutive afternoons during the month of May in 1895, and, though the reproduction of the borrowed tones was not so true to the original as that essayed by many a Starling in the same locality, it was impossible to close one's ears to the fact that for once in a way I had made the acquaintance of a Blackbird that not only took delight in mimicry, but modelled its refrain on the lines of that of which it had almost daily experience.

It may well be that the tuneful lay of the Blackbird is commenced at different seasons in different parts of the country,—I mean that the species will probably be heard in full song some days earlier in the spring of the year in a southern county like Hampshire, for instance, than in the more northerly regions of the British Islands. Considerations of this kind may not unnaturally be held to detract from the value of any given date respecting the first heard song of any particular species; but, as a comparative guide to my brother field-naturalists who take pleasure in noting the humblest details where birds are concerned, I may incidentally observe that I have never heard the Blackbird at the zenith of his musical powers in Leicestershire previously to February 20th, nor, I may add, the Chaffinch previously to February 19th. In this connection, however, much will obviously depend on the atmospheric conditions prevailing from year to year. Zool. 4th ser. vol. III., January, 1899