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each Species; the Marks of Cock and Hen; the Timė and Manner of Building their Nefts; the Number, Colour, &c. of their Eggs; how to order and bring up the Young; and whatever elfe is either pleasant or neceffary to be known concerning them.

And to render it still more useful and entertaining, there are added the Figures of the Cock, Hen, and Egg of each Sort, exactly copied from Nature • This last very pleasant, and fuitable Addition, which is univerfally delightful to all Perfons, is wanting in the Books that have been hitherto published on this Subject: Befides thefe, the Reader will find fame Obfervations not to be met with in any Author. I do not fay this to undervalue any other Man's Work; no, there are fime good Performances of this Kind extant; and to which I own myself in some few Particulars a Debtor; and bad they exhibited the Figures of the Birds, &c. as is bere done, it would have anticipated my Defign.

I fhall obferve nothing more concerning what has been done by others; and as to this Treatife, only wish that my Readers may receive the Satisfaction that was intended by the fincere Endeavours of their

Moft Humble Servant,

A Lover of Birds..

1

Black-Bird Cock Hen and Egg

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NATURAL HISTORY

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English SINGING-BIRDS.

The Defcription and Character of the Black-Bird.

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HIS is a Bird well known, being common in most, if not all the Counties in England; therefore needs not a particular Defcription. He is the largest Song-Bird that I know of, found in this Kingdom; and likewise one of the firft that proclaims the welcome Spring, by his fhrill harmonious Voice, as if he were the Harbinger of Nature, to awaken the reft of the feathered Tribe to prepare for the approaching Sea

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fon:

fon: And by the fweet Modulation of his tuneful Accents, endeavours to delight the Hen, and allure her to fubmit to his Embraces, even before there are Leaves on the Trees, and whilft the Frofts are in the Fields; building their Neft the soonest of any Bird; having young Ones, commonly by the twenty-fifth of March, and fometimes by the Middle of that Month.

The Cock, when kept in a Cage. whiftles and fings very delightfully all the Spring and Summer-Time: at leaft four or five Months in the Year; is a ftout, hardy Bird; which, befides his own pleasant natural Note, may be taught to whiftle, or play a Tune.

The Black-Bird, when wild in the Fields, feeds promifcuoufly upon Berries and Infects: Tis a folitary Bird, that for the most Part flies fingly.

The diftinguishing Marks of the Cock and Hen.

THEY are not eafily known by their Colour while young, but the blackest Bird generally proves a Cock: The Irides, or Circle, that circumvefts the Eye in the young Cock Bird, is yellow; his Bill is black, and turns not perfectly yellow till he is near a Year old: The Bill of an old Cock

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