_Male_--plumage wholly black; bill and orbits of the eyes orange yellow; feet black. _Female_--upper plumage sooty brown; throat pale brown with darker spots; breast reddish brown passing into dark ash brown; bill and legs dusky. Length ten inches; breadth sixteen inches. Eggs greenish grey, spotted and speckled with light red brown.
With his glossy coat and yellow beak the Blackbird is a handsomer bird than the Thrush; his food is much the same: he builds his nest in similar places; he is a great glutton when gooseberries are ripe, and his rich mellow song is highly inspiriting. But he is suspicious and wary; however hard pressed he may be by hunger, you will rarely see him hunting for food in the open field. He prefers the solitude and privacy of 'the bush'. In a furze-brake, a coppice, a wooded watercourse, or a thick hedgerow, he chooses his feeding ground, and allows no sort of partnership. Approach his haunt, and if he simply mistrusts you, he darts out flying close to the ground, pursues his course some twenty yards and dips again into the thicket, issuing most probably on the other side, and ceasing not until he has placed what he considers a safe distance between himself and his enemy. But with all his cunning he fails in prudence; it is not in his nature to steal away silently. If he only suspects that all is not right, he utters repeatedly a low cluck, which seems to say, 'This is no place for me, I must be off'. But if he is positively alarmed, his loud vociferous cry rings out like a bell, informing all whom it may concern that 'danger is at hand, and it behoves all who value their safety to fly'. Most animals understand the cry in this sense, and catch the alarm. Many a time has the deer-stalker been disappointed of a shot, who, after traversing half a mile on his hands and knees between rocks and shrubs, has just before the critical moment of action started some ill-omened Blackbird. Out bursts the frantic alarum, heard at a great distance; the intended victim catches the alarm, once snuffs the air to discover in what direction the foe lies concealed, and bounds to a place of security. A somewhat similar note, not, however, indicative of terror, real or imagined, is uttered when the bird is about to retire for the night, and this at all seasons of the year. He would merit, therefore, the title of 'Bellman of the woods'. Neither of these sounds is to be confounded with the true _song_ of the Blackbird. This is a full, melodious, joyful carol, many of the notes being remarkable for their flute-like tone--'the whistling of the Blackbird'--and varying greatly in their order of repetition; though I am inclined to believe that most birds of this kind have a favourite passage, which they repeat at intervals many times during the same performance.
