THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

[T]he moor blackbird or ring-ousel is the bird of all birds to “walk into“ your fruit of the berry sort.  I do not know for certain that birds do blush, or else I should say he is the most unblushing, the most unabashed of all possible delinquents in the fruit-stealing and wasting line.  His effrontery exceeds that of the Irish member of fiction, of caricature even.  The blackbird flies away when caught in the act with a startled cackle; the thrush retires with an apologetic cheep.  But the moor blackbird – always a past master in birds’ Billingsgate – swears at you, calls you all the choicest names in his repertory -, blackguards you for interfering with his meal, and if forced to make himself scarce, does so with the assurance emphatically delivered and repeated that “you are no gentleman.“  I have sometimes ventured to represent to them that I thought I had a little right in my own garden, even if it was only to see what sort of a feed they were getting.  They flatly and insultingly declined to see it.  I suppose it must have been the rankling of their contumelious treatment of me which always made me gloat with a fine sense of compensation obtained, whenever one of them fell a victim to my avenging gun.

Atkinson/Parish, 1891