MEeting with a Female of this kind at Florence in Italy, I thus described it. It is of the bigness of a Blackbird, and for shape of body very like it, nor much different in colour.
The Head and Neck were thicker than to answer the proportion of the body. The top of the Head was of a dark ash-colour. The Back was of a deep blue, al∣most black, only the extreme edges of the feathers were whitish. The Shoulders and covert-feathers of the Wings were of the same colour. Each Wing had eighteen quill-feathers, besides a little short one outmost, all dusky, but some had white tips. The second row of Wing-feathers had also white tips. The Tail was about four inches long, and composed of twelve black feathers. The underside of the Body Breast, Belly, and Thighs, was all variegated with black, cinereous, and whitish transverse waved lines, so that in colour it resembled a Cuckow. Under the Throat, and in the upper part of the Breast no ash-colour appeared, and the white lines had something of red mingled with them. The Bill was streight, blackish, rather longer than a Thrushes Bill, as also a little thicker and stronger. The Legs short and black: The Feet and Claws black. The Legs, Feet, and Claws in this sort seemed to me les∣ser than in the rest of the Thrush-kind. The Mouth within was yellow, the stomach filled with Grapes.
The Cocks are much more beautiful, all over of a shining blue, or bluish purple colour, as Aldrovandus witnesseth, and as we also observed in a Cock we saw at Rome, whose Back especially was of a most lovely glistering dark purple colour.
It is wont to sit alone on the tops of ancient Edifices and Roofs of Churches, sing∣ing most sweetly, especially in the Morning, whence it took its name, being supposed to be the bird spoken of, Psalm 102. 7. It builds also in the like places, for which Olina is my Author. For the excellency of its singing it is highly prized in Italy, specially, at Genua and Milan. It hath a whistling note like a Pipe, and may easily be taught to imitate mans voice.