IF you intend to catch the first note of the Blackbird you must indeed be an early riser. And let me assure you that early rising, especially in the country, will be richly rewarded, not only by the sweetest of music, but by sights and sounds and pleasures the most cheering and delightful. But I fear these are not the days for early rising. Even young people live too fast. Telegraphs, and railways, and the busy, whirling scenes of a city life; evening parties, and readings, and lectures, and the superficial daily newspaper, not to name the wretched, dissipating, soul-poisoning fictions that everywhere abound, are terribly distractive of those sober habits of reflection and quiet observation which make even children love to rise early, and wander forth to gaze upon the beauties of a rising sun and drink in all the charms of early day. I cannot but think if once you were to see the glories of a sunrise, even in gloomy England, it would tempt you to become an early riser.
“Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the scene.
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower
Glistening with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers.”
Well, the Blackbird is amongst the earliest of risers, and as the old saying is, he is the bird that pecks up the worm. He has got a voice that rings through the woods with the choicest music. His voice is very loud, yet not so loud as the Thrush, nor so varied, but far sweeter and richer. It is deep, mellow, full of melody, and the very soul of music. The stave of the Blackbird is brief, consisting of not more than six or seven notes, after which there is an interlude of silence, when the ear listens eagerly for its repetition.
He is of a retired and solitary nature; frequents hedges, and thickets, shrubberies, large gardens, especially thick laurel hedges, and the borders of woods. A bower of ivy, or a solitary bush of some luxuriant evergreen is a favorite site for its nest. It is a somewhat timid bird and easily disturbed. The nest is made of moss, fibers, small twigs; is lined with mud or clay, over which is spread a layer of hay or fine straw. The female lays four or five eggs, of a fine bluish-green with spots of pale reddish brown; but sometimes they are of a uniform blue, without spots.
The Blackbird is found all over the British Islands—Wales, Ireland and Scotland. There is one feature about this bird which I have much pleasure in telling you of: the male and female are most devotedly attached to each other. Most birds, but not all, pair every spring, but it is thought Blackbirds remain true to each other for life. Not only so, but they display the greatest affection for their young. A patient and accurate observer watched a pair from a quarter to three in the morning till a quarter before nine at night, and found that during that time the male fed the young ones forty-four times, and the mother sixty-nine times. Many touching stories are told of this wonderful attachment, amongst the rest that of a schoolboy, who took a nest from the Great Park of Windsor: the old birds followed their young for a distance of near three miles, flying from tree to tree and uttering those distressed and wailing notes which are so peculiar to the Blackbird. The boy placed the young birds in a cage, and hung them outside the house, where they were regularly fed by the parents. As they grew up, the boy sold first one and then another till the last one was gone. The following morning the female was found dead beneath the cage, as if unable to survive the loss of her offspring. I trust not one of my readers will ever become so hardhearted as this cruel boy.
There is nothing in this world so beautiful as a mother's love. The more you think of her love to you, the more you will love her in return.