This is a lively, cheery bird, an ornament to the thickets and clearings of the woods. Just before the evening twilight, in company with others of the Thrush family, it seeks the clearings and openings of the woods, and delights the eye of the beholder, by its hopping here and there, its darting and hunting--busily dragging worms out of the ground and attacking all the mischievous Chafer family. Then it flies on to the summit of a bush or an over-spreading bough, and its powerful, pure flute-like song resounds through the wood, and makes the listener forget all else. In autumn it eats the berries, sometimes fruit; but being very timid it is easily driven off. It is a useful bird and a pleasure to eye and ear. This is the bird which is so often taken from the nest and reared. The male bird fetches a good price in Hungary, for it learns to whistle tunes--even from street-organs. Because it learns so easily, it sometimes happens, that in the middle of a beautiful tune which it has been taught, some most excruciating sound is heard, reminiscent of an ungreased cart-wheel. In Germany the Blackbird has become a town-bird; and people spread dried ant-eggs, chopped meat, and maggots, and make a nest for it near their vine-covered windows. It stays there also during the winter. And what about the East? Why are children ever brought up in such a way that they seize a stone directly they see a Blackbird? [Illustration: USEFUL. THE BLACKBIRD.] In February our English Blackbird will be thinking of mating. We are all familiar with the usual nesting-site which is chosen--evergreen, thick bushes, and hedgerows--but it has been known to build successfully and to lay its eggs, in the heart of what is known as the thousand-headed cabbage. The young of the early broods sometimes help the parents to feed the young of the second brood of the season.