The Blackbird
1945; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 156; Issue: 3959 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1038/156318b0
ISSN1476-4687
Autores Tópico(s)Avian ecology and behavior
ResumoIT is wrong, to my mind, to tell a child not to be cruel to animals; it puts the very idea of cruelty into his mind, and the living creatures remain animals, or even beasts, for him. He had better grow up among the mouse-people and the sparrow-people and the pussy-cat-people, and all the other friendly people who share the world with each other and with him. This is the wholesome spirit in which Mr. A. F. C. Hillstead writes about the blackbird, in the company of which he has lived for years, until he knows him body and soul. There is not a thing in his little life which Mr. Hillstead has not studied and described: his song, his 'territory' or law of landed property, his courtship and nest-building and care of his young, his migrations on holiday jaunts, his general intelligence, and all the diverse occupations of his livelong day. Mr. Hillstead has much to tell under all these heads, and more besides. The blackbird is no world-wanderer, like stork or swallow, but he does love a change of air; he likes to 'go places', like civilized man. He comes across the Channel to share our milder, insular winter; he is partial to Ireland; he cares little for Devon, and openly dislikes Cornwall, strange to say. His song is described with full sympathy and comprehension; "by and large, it has no equal; there is nothing to touch the rich flute-like tones which are so essentially British". The Blackbird A Contribution to the Study of a Single Avian Species. By A. F. C. Hillstead. Pp. 104 + 19 plates. (London: Faber and Faber, Ltd., 1945.) 8s. 6d. net.
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