86-563: Mavis is a feminine given name, derived from a name for the common Old World song thrush . Its first modern usage was in Marie Corelli 's 1895 novel The Sorrows of Satan , which featured a character named Mavis Clare (whose name was said to be "rather odd but suitable", as "she sings quite as sweetly as any thrush"). The name was long obsolete by the 19th century, but known from its poetic use, as in Robert Burns 's 1794 poem Ca'
172-502: A black screen. The standard HTML color purple is created by red and blue light of equal intensity, at a brightness that is halfway between full power and darkness. In color printing, purple is sometimes represented by the color magenta , or sometimes by mixing magenta with red or blue. It can also be created by mixing just red and blue alone, but in that case the purple is less bright, with lower saturation or intensity. A less bright purple can also be created with light or paint by adding
258-419: A certain quantity of the third primary color (green for light or yellow for pigment). Purple is closely associated with violet . In common usage, both refer to a variety of colors between blue and red in hue . Historically, purple has tended to be used for redder hues and violet for bluer hues. In optics , violet is a spectral color ; it refers to the color of any different single wavelength of light on
344-427: A favorite stone as an "anvil" on which to break the shell of the snail before extracting the soft body and invariably wiping it on the ground before consumption. Young birds initially flick objects and attempt to play with them until they learn to use anvils as tools to smash snails. The nestlings are mainly fed on animal food such as worms, slugs , snails and insect larvae . The grove snail ( Cepaea nemoralis )
430-660: A few other categories of citizens. The Toga picta was solid purple, embroidered with gold. During the Roman Republic , it was worn by generals in their triumphs , and by the Praetor Urbanus when he rode in the chariot of the gods into the circus at the Ludi Apollinares . During the Empire, the toga picta was worn by magistrates giving public gladiatorial games, and by the consuls , as well as by
516-522: A handkerchief. In the year 2000, a gram of Tyrian purple made from ten thousand mollusks according to the original formula cost two thousand euros. In ancient China, purple was obtained not through the Mediterranean mollusc, but purple gromwell . The dye obtained did not easily adhere to fabrics, making purple fabrics expensive. Purple became a fashionable color in the state of Qi (齊, 1046 BC–221 BC) because its ruler, Duke Huan of Qi , developed
602-638: A mantle of Tyrian purple, and was buried in 814 in a shroud of the same color, which still exists (see below). However, after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the color lost its imperial status. The great dye works of Constantinople were destroyed, and gradually scarlet , made with dye from the cochineal insect, became the royal color in Europe. In 1464, Pope Paul II decreed that cardinals should no longer wear Tyrian purple, and instead wear scarlet, from kermes and alum, since
688-474: A neat cup-shaped nest lined with mud and dry grass in a bush, tree or creeper, or, in the case of the Hebridean subspecies, on the ground. She lays four or five bright glossy blue eggs which are lightly spotted with black or purple; they are typically 2.7 cm × 2.0 cm ( 1 + 1 ⁄ 8 in × 3 ⁄ 4 in) size and weigh 6.0 g ( 3 ⁄ 16 oz), of which 6%
774-466: A preference for it. As a result, the price of purple fabric was over five times that of plain fabric. His minister, Guan Zhong (管仲), eventually convinced him to relinquish this preference. China was the first culture to develop a synthetic purple color. An old hypothesis suggested links between the Chinese purple and blue and Egyptian blue , however, molecular structure analysis and evidence such as
860-412: A ravening second". Nineteenth-century Welsh poet Edward Thomas wrote 15 poems concerning blackbirds or thrushes, including The Thrush : I hear the thrush, and I see Him alone at the end of the lane Near the bare poplar's tip, Singing continuously. In The Tables Turned , Romantic poet William Wordsworth references the song thrush, writing Hark, how blithe the throstle sings And he
946-616: A reddish to a bluish purple. According to the Roman writer Vitruvius , (1st century BC), the murex shells coming from northern waters, probably Bolinus brandaris , produced a more bluish color than those of the south, probably Hexaplex trunculus . The most valued shades were said to be those closer to the color of dried blood, as seen in the mosaics of the robes of the Emperor Justinian in Ravenna . The chemical composition of
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#17327761630771032-458: A strong white supercilium , red flanks, and shows a red underwing in flight. The mistle thrush ( T. viscivorus ) is much larger and has white tail corners, and the Chinese thrush ( T. mupinensis ), although much more similar in plumage, has black face markings and does not overlap in range. The song thrush has a short, sharp tsip call, replaced on migration by a thin high seep , similar to
1118-473: Is omnivorous and has the habit of using a favourite stone as an " anvil " on which to break open the shells of snails . Like other perching birds ( passerines ), it is affected by external and internal parasites and is vulnerable to predation by cats and birds of prey . The song thrush was described by German ornithologist Christian Ludwig Brehm in 1831, and still bears its original scientific name , Turdus philomelos . The generic name, Turdus ,
1204-478: Is 10 years 8 months. The song thrush is occasionally a host of parasitic cuckoos , such as the common cuckoo , but this is very rare because the thrush recognizes the cuckoo's non-mimetic eggs. However, the song thrush does not demonstrate the same aggression toward the adult cuckoo that is shown by the blackbird . The introduced birds in New Zealand, where the cuckoo does not occur, have, over
1290-623: Is Dracula's teenage daughter in the popular Hotel Transylvania franchise, which debuted in 2012 and has had sequels in 2015, 2018, and 2022. Song thrush Turdus musicus The song thrush ( Turdus philomelos ) is a thrush that breeds across the West Palearctic . It has brown upper-parts and black-spotted cream or buff underparts and has three recognised subspecies . Its distinctive song , which has repeated musical phrases, has frequently been referred to in poetry. The song thrush breeds in forests, gardens and parks, and
1376-547: Is a color similar in appearance to violet light. In the RYB color model historically used in the arts, purple is a secondary color created by combining red and blue pigments. In the CMYK color model used in modern printing, purple is made by combining magenta pigment with either cyan pigment, black pigment, or both. In the RGB color model used in computer and television screens, purple
1462-665: Is created by mixing red and blue light in order to create colors that appear similar to violet light. Purple has long been associated with royalty, originally because Tyrian purple dye—made from the secretions of sea snails—was extremely expensive in antiquity. Purple was the color worn by Roman magistrates; it became the imperial color worn by the rulers of the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Roman Empire , and later by Roman Catholic bishops . Similarly in Japan ,
1548-506: Is found in the Odyssey : "Then, as doves or thrushes beating their spread wings against some snare rigged up in thickets—flying in for a cosy nest but a grisly bed receives them." Hunting continues today around the Mediterranean, but is not believed to be a major factor in this species' decline in parts of its range. In Spain, this species is normally caught as it migrates through the country, often using birdlime which, although banned by
1634-493: Is given mainly from February to June by the Outer Hebridean race, but from November to July by the more widespread subspecies. For its weight, this species has one of the loudest bird calls. An individual male may have a repertoire of more than 100 phrases, many copied from its parents and neighbouring birds. Mimicry may include the imitation of man-made items like telephones, and the song thrush will also repeat
1720-409: Is included in regional Red Lists . The decreases are greatest in farmlands (73% since the mid-1970s) and believed to be due to changes in agricultural practices in recent decades. The precise reasons for the decline are not known but may be related to the loss of hedgerows, a move to sowing crops in autumn rather than spring, and possibly the increased use of pesticides. These changes may have reduced
1806-469: Is known as the line of purples , or the purple line. During the Middle Ages, artists usually made purple by combining red and blue pigments; most often blue azurite or lapis-lazuli with red ochre , cinnabar , or minium . They also combined lake colors made by mixing dye with powder; using woad or indigo dye for the blue, and dye made from cochineal for the red. The most famous purple dye in
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#17327761630771892-488: Is no mean preacher Come forth into the light of things Let Nature be your teacher The song thrush is the emblem of West Bromwich Albion Football Club , chosen because the public house in which the team used to change kept a pet thrush in a cage. It also gave rise to Albion's early nickname, The Throstles . A few English pubs and hotels share the name Throstles Nest . Thrushes have been trapped for food from as far back as 12,000 years ago and an early reference
1978-401: Is not one of the colors of the visible spectrum . It was not one of the colors of the rainbow identified by Isaac Newton . According to some authors, purple does not have its own wavelength of light. For this reason, it is sometimes called a non-spectral color . It exists in culture and art, but not, in the same way that violet does, in optics. According to some speakers of English, purple
2064-496: Is partially migratory with many birds wintering in southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East; it has also been introduced into New Zealand and Australia. Although it is not threatened globally, there have been serious population declines in parts of Europe, possibly due to changes in farming practices. The song thrush builds a neat mud-lined cup nest in a bush or tree and lays four to five dark-spotted blue eggs . It
2150-432: Is regularly eaten by the song thrush, and its polymorphic shell patterns have been suggested as evolutionary responses to reduce predation; however, song thrushes may not be the only selective force involved. The song thrush has an extensive range, estimated at 10 million square kilometres (4 million square miles), and a large population, with an estimated 40 to 71 million individuals in Europe alone. In
2236-416: Is shell. The female incubates the eggs alone for 10–17 days, and after hatching a similar time elapses until the young fledge. Two or three broods in a year is normal, although only one may be raised in the north of the range. On average, 54.6% of British juveniles survive the first year of life, and the adult annual survival rate is 62.2%. The typical lifespan is three years, but the maximum recorded age
2322-403: Is simply a combination, in various proportions, of two primary colors, red and blue. According to other speakers of English, the same range of colors is called violet. In some textbooks of color theory , and depending on the geographical-cultural origin of the author, a "purple" is defined as any non-spectral color between violet and red (excluding violet and red themselves). In that case,
2408-667: Is the Latin for thrush , and the specific epithet refers to a character in Greek mythology , Philomela , who had her tongue cut out, but was changed into a singing bird. Her name is derived from the Ancient Greek Φιλο philo- ( loving ), and μέλος melos ( song ). The dialect names throstle and mavis both mean thrush , being related to the German drossel and French mauvis respectively. Throstle dates back to at least
2494-467: Is used by the pigment maker to lower the melting point of the barium in Han Purple. Purple was regarded as a secondary color in ancient China. In classical times, secondary colors were not as highly prized as the five primary colors of the Chinese spectrum, and purple was used to allude to impropriety, in contrast to crimson, which was deemed a primary color and symbolized legitimacy. Nevertheless, by
2580-486: The CMYK printing process is near the center of the line of purples, but most people associate the term "purple" with a somewhat bluer tone, such as is displayed by the color "electric purple" (a color also directly on the line of purples), shown below. On the CIE xy chromaticity diagram , violet is on the curved edge in the lower left, while purples are on the straight line connecting the extreme colors red and violet; this line
2666-699: The European Union , is still tolerated and permitted in the Valencian Community . In 2003 and 2004 the EU tried, but failed, to stop this practice in the Valencian region. Up to at least the nineteenth century the song thrush was kept as a cage bird because of its melodious voice. As with hunting, there is little evidence that the taking of wild birds for aviculture has had a significant effect on wild populations. Purple Purple
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2752-650: The Mediterranean , North Africa and the Middle East , but only some of the birds in the milder west of the breeding range leave their breeding areas. In Great Britain song thrushes are commonly found where there are trees and bushes. Such areas include parks, gardens, coniferous and deciduous woodland and hedgerows. Birds of the nominate subspecies were introduced to New Zealand and Australia by acclimatisation societies between 1860 and 1880, apparently for purely sentimental reasons. In New Zealand, where it
2838-775: The Old English purpul, which derives from Latin purpura , which, in turn, derives from the Greek πορφύρα ( porphura ), the name of the Tyrian purple dye manufactured in classical antiquity from a mucus secreted by the spiny dye-murex snail. The first recorded use of the word purple dates to the late 900s AD. Purple first appeared in prehistoric art during the Neolithic era. The artists of Pech Merle cave and other Neolithic sites in France used sticks of manganese and hematite powder to draw and paint animals and
2924-677: The Seleucid Empire , and the kings of Ptolemaic Egypt all wore Tyrian purple. The Roman custom of wearing purple togas may have come from the Etruscans ; an Etruscan tomb painting from the 4th century BC shows a nobleman wearing a deep purple and embroidered toga. In Ancient Rome, the Toga praetexta was an ordinary white toga with a broad purple stripe on its border. It was worn by freeborn Roman boys who had not yet come of age, curule magistrates , certain categories of priests, and
3010-440: The spectral colors violet and indigo would not be shades of purple. For other speakers of English, these colors are shades of purple. In the traditional color wheel long used by painters, purple is placed between crimson and violet. However, also here there is much variation in color terminology depending on cultural background of the painters and authors, and sometimes the term violet is used and placed in between red and blue on
3096-552: The 1,000 most popular names for newborn girls in the United States in 1895. It was at peak use for American girls between 1920 and 1938, when it was among the top 300 names given to newborn girls. Its usage declined thereafter in the Anglosphere , but usage in the United States has since increased in recent years. Mavis has again been among the top 1,000 names for newborn girls in the United States since 2016. Mavis Dracula
3182-478: The 20th century, purple retained its historic connection with royalty; George VI (1896–1952), wore purple in his official portrait, and it was prominent in every feature of the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953, from the invitations to the stage design inside Westminster Abbey . But at the same time, it was becoming associated with social change; with the Women's Suffrage movement for the right to vote for women in
3268-500: The 6th century AD, purple was ranked above crimson. Several changes to the ranks of colors occurred after that time. Through the early Christian era, the rulers of the Byzantine Empire continued the use of purple as the imperial color, for diplomatic gifts, and even for imperial documents and the pages of the Bible. Gospel manuscripts were written in gold lettering on parchment that was colored Tyrian purple. Empresses gave birth in
3354-502: The Bible passage is purpura or Tyrian purple. In the Iliad of Homer , the belt of Ajax is purple, and the tails of the horses of Trojan warriors are dipped in purple. In the Odyssey , the blankets on the wedding bed of Odysseus are purple. In the poems of Sappho (6th century BC) she celebrates the skill of the dyers of the Greek kingdom of Lydia who made purple footwear, and in
3440-626: The English rock band of Deep Purple which formed in 1968. Later, in the 1980s, it was featured in the song and album Purple Rain (1984) by the American musician Prince . The Purple Rain Protest was a protest against apartheid that took place in Cape Town , South Africa on 2 September 1989, in which a police water cannon with purple dye sprayed thousands of demonstrators. This led to
3526-523: The Eurasian lineage of Turdus thrushes after they spread north from Africa. They are less closely related to other European thrush species such as the blackbird ( T. merula ) which are descended from ancestors that had colonised the Canary islands from Africa and subsequently reached Europe from there. The song thrush has three subspecies , with the nominate subspecies , T. p. philomelos , covering
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3612-524: The Great and other rulers, by bishops and, in lighter shades, by members of the aristocracy, but rarely by ordinary people, because of its high cost. But in the 19th century, that changed. In 1856, an eighteen-year-old British chemistry student named William Henry Perkin was trying to make a synthetic quinine . His experiments produced instead the first synthetic aniline dye , a purple shade called mauveine , shortened simply to mauve . It took its name from
3698-604: The Purple Chamber, and the emperors born there were known as "born to the purple," to separate them from emperors who won or seized the title through political intrigue or military force. Bishops of the Byzantine church wore white robes with stripes of purple, while government officials wore squares of purple fabric to show their rank. In western Europe, the Emperor Charlemagne was crowned in 800 wearing
3784-632: The Royal Palace of Qatna . As early as the 15th century BC, the citizens of Sidon and Tyre , two cities on the coast of Ancient Phoenicia (present day Lebanon), were producing purple dye from a sea snail called the spiny dye-murex . Clothing colored with the Tyrian dye was mentioned in both the Iliad of Homer and the Aeneid of Virgil . The deep, rich purple dye made from this snail became known as Tyrian purple. The process of making
3870-555: The Yowes ("Hark the mavis evening sang/Sounding Clouden's woods amang"); and in the popular love song "Mary of Argyle" (c.1850), where lyricist Charles Jefferys wrote, "I have heard the mavis singing its love-song to the morn." Mavis was among the top 100 names for newborn girls in New Zealand between 1900 and 1943 and among the top 100 names for newborn girls in the United Kingdom between 1924 and 1944. It first appeared among
3956-578: The absence of lead in Egyptian blue and the lack of examples of Egyptian blue in China, argued against the hypothesis. The use of quartz, barium, and lead components in ancient Chinese glass and Han purple and Han blue has been used to suggest a connection between glassmaking and the manufacture of pigments, and to prove the independence of the Chinese invention. Taoist alchemists may have developed Han purple from their knowledge of glassmaking. Lead
4042-485: The ancient world was Tyrian purple , made from a type of sea snail called the murex , found around the Mediterranean. (See history section above). In western Polynesia , residents of the islands made a purple dye similar to Tyrian purple from the sea urchin . In Central America, the inhabitants made a dye from a different sea snail, the purpura , found on the coasts of Costa Rica and Nicaragua . The Mayans used this color to dye fabric for religious ceremonies, while
4128-435: The availability of food and of nest sites. In gardens, the use of poison bait to control slugs and snails may pose a threat. In urban areas, some thrushes are killed while using the hard surface of roads to smash snails. The song thrush's characteristic song, with melodic phrases repeated twice or more, is described by the nineteenth-century British poet Robert Browning in his poem Home Thoughts, from Abroad : That's
4214-409: The belly. The underwing is warm yellow, the bill is yellowish and the legs and feet are pink. The upperparts of this species become colder in tone from west to east across the breeding range from Sweden to Siberia. The juvenile resembles the adult, but has buff or orange streaks on the back and wing coverts . The most similar European thrush species is the redwing ( T. iliacus ), but that bird has
4300-414: The blackbird, fieldfare , redwing and dark-throated thrush . Unlike the more nomadic fieldfare and redwing, the song thrush tends to return regularly to the same wintering areas. This is a monogamous territorial species, and in areas where it is fully migratory, the male re-establishes its breeding territory and starts singing as soon as he returns. In the milder areas where some birds stay year round,
4386-509: The calls of captive birds, including exotics such as the white-faced whistling duck . The song thrush breeds in most of Europe (although not in the greater part of Iberia , lowland Italy or southern Greece), and across Ukraine and Russia almost to Lake Baikal . It reaches to 75°N in Norway, but only to about 60°N in Siberia. Birds from Scandinavia , Eastern Europe and Russia winter around
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#17327761630774472-555: The clergy, and they often wore square/violet or purple/violet caps and robes, or black robes with purple/violet trim. Purple/violet robes were particularly worn by students of divinity. Purple and violet also played an important part in the religious paintings of the Renaissance. Angels and the Virgin Mary were often portrayed wearing purple or violet robes. In the 18th century, purple was still worn on occasion by Catherine
4558-409: The color is traditionally associated with the emperor and aristocracy. According to contemporary surveys in Europe and the United States, purple is the color most often associated with rarity, royalty, luxury, ambition, magic, mystery, piety and spirituality. When combined with pink , it is associated with eroticism , femininity , and seduction . The modern English word purple comes from
4644-714: The color of kings, nobles, priests and magistrates all around the Mediterranean. It was mentioned in the Hebrew Bible ( Old Testament ); in the Book of Exodus , God instructs Moses to have the Israelites bring him an offering including cloth "of blue, and purple, and scarlet," to be used in the curtains of the Tabernacle and the garments of priests. The term used for purple in the 4th-century Latin Vulgate version of
4730-463: The color of the women's liberation movement . In the concentration camps of Nazi Germany , prisoners who were members of non-conformist religious groups, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses , were required to wear a purple triangle . During the 1960s and early 1970s, it was also associated with counterculture , psychedelics , and musicians like Jimi Hendrix with his 1967 song " Purple Haze ", or
4816-408: The color terms violet and purple varies even among native speakers of English, for example between United Kingdom and United States. Optics research on purple and violet contains contributions of authors from different countries and different native languages, it is likely to be inconsistent in the use and meaning of the two colors. According to some speakers/authors of English, purple, unlike violet,
4902-483: The dye from Byzantium was no longer available. Bishops and archbishops, of a lower status than cardinals, were assigned the color purple, but not the rich Tyrian purple. They wore cloth dyed first with the less expensive indigo blue, then overlaid with red made from kermes dye. While purple was worn less frequently by Medieval and Renaissance kings and princes, it was worn by the professors of many of Europe's new universities. Their robes were modeled after those of
4988-605: The dye from the murex is close to that of the dye from indigo , and indigo was sometimes used to make a counterfeit Tyrian purple, a crime which was severely punished. What seems to have mattered about Tyrian purple was not its color, but its luster, richness, its resistance to weather and light, and its high price. In modern times, Tyrian purple has been recreated, at great expense. When the German chemist Paul Friedander tried to recreate Tyrian purple in 2008, he needed twelve thousand mollusks to create 1.4 ounces of dye, enough to color
5074-399: The dye was long, difficult and expensive. Thousands of the tiny snails had to be found, their shells cracked, the snail removed. Mountains of empty shells have been found at the ancient sites of Sidon and Tyre. The snails were left to soak, then a tiny gland was removed and the juice extracted and put in a basin, which was placed in the sunlight. There, a remarkable transformation took place. In
5160-477: The early decades of the century, with Feminism in the 1970s, and with the psychedelic drug culture of the 1960s. In the early 20th century, purple, green, and white were the colors of the Women's Suffrage movement, which fought to win the right to vote for women, finally succeeding with the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920. Later, in the 1970s, in a tribute to the Suffragettes, it became
5246-435: The east of the song thrush's Eurasian range, the nominate subspecies is restricted to the edge of the dense conifer forests. In intensively farmed areas where agricultural practices appear to have made cropped land unsuitable, gardens are an important breeding habitat. In one English study, only 3.5% of territories were found in farmland, whereas gardens held 71.5% of the territories, despite that habitat making up only 2% of
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#17327761630775332-603: The emperor on special occasions. During the Roman Republic, when a triumph was held, the general being honored wore an entirely purple toga bordered in gold, and Roman Senators wore a toga with a purple stripe. However, during the Roman Empire , purple was more and more associated exclusively with the emperors and their officers. Suetonius claims that the early emperor Caligula had the King of Mauretania murdered for
5418-403: The fieldfares, redwings and song thrushes sampled carried haematozoans, particularly Haemoproteus and Trypanosoma . Ixodes ticks are also common, and can carry pathogens, including tick-borne encephalitis in forested areas of central and eastern Europe and Russia, and, more widely, Borrelia bacteria . Some species of Borrelia cause Lyme disease , and ground-feeding birds like
5504-529: The fourteenth century and was used by Chaucer in the Parliament of Fowls . Mavis is derived via Middle English mavys and Old French mauvis from Middle Breton milhuyt meaning "thrush." Mavis (Μαβής) can also mean " purple " in Greek . A molecular study indicated that the song thrush's closest relatives are the similarly plumaged mistle thrush ( T. viscivorus ) and Chinese thrush ( T. mupinensis ); these three species are early offshoots from
5590-615: The majority of the species' range. T. p. hebridensis , described by British ornithologist William Eagle Clarke in 1913, is a mainly sedentary (non-migratory) form found in the Outer Hebrides and Isle of Skye in Scotland . It is the darkest subspecies, with a dark brown back, greyish rump, pale buff background colour to the underparts and grey-tinged flanks. T. p. clarkei , described by German zoologist Ernst Hartert in 1909, and named for William Eagle Clarke , breeds in
5676-491: The mallow flower, which is the same color. The new color quickly became fashionable, particularly after Queen Victoria wore a silk gown dyed with mauveine to the Royal Exhibition of 1862. Prior to Perkin's discovery, mauve was a color which only the aristocracy and rich could afford to wear. Perkin developed an industrial process, built a factory, and produced the dye by the ton, so almost anyone could wear mauve. It
5762-635: The migration of large soaring birds), and calls frequently to maintain contact. Migration may start as early as late August in the most easterly and northerly parts of the range, but the majority of birds, with shorter distances to cover, head south from September to mid-December. However, hard weather may force further movement. Return migration varies between mid-February around the Mediterranean to May in northern Sweden and central Siberia . Vagrants have been recorded in Greenland , various Atlantic islands, and West Africa . The female song thrush builds
5848-831: The nominate subspecies in central Europe, and with T. p. hebridensis in the Inner Hebrides and western Scotland, and in these areas birds show intermediate characteristics. Additional subspecies, such as T. p. nataliae of Siberia , proposed by the Russian Sergei Buturlin in 1929, are not widely accepted. The song thrush (as represented by the nominate subspecies T. p. philomelos ) is 20 to 23.5 centimetres ( 7 + 3 ⁄ 4 to 9 + 1 ⁄ 4 inches) in length and weighs 50 to 107 grams ( 1 + 3 ⁄ 4 to 3 + 3 ⁄ 4 ounces). The sexes are similar, with plain brown backs and neatly black-spotted cream or yellow-buff underparts, becoming paler on
5934-557: The outlines of their own hands on the walls of their caves. These works have been dated to between 16,000 and 25,000 BC. Purple textiles, dating back to the early second millennium BCE, were found in Syria , making them the oldest known purple textiles in the world. These findings include textiles from a burial site in Chagar Bazar , dating back to the 18th-16th centuries BCE, as well as preserved textile samples discovered in gypsum at
6020-504: The past 130 years, retained the ability to recognize and reject non-mimetic eggs. Adult birds may be killed by cats , little owls and sparrowhawks , and eggs and nestlings are taken by magpies , jays , and, where present, grey squirrels . As with other passerine birds, parasites are common, and include endoparasites, such as the nematode Splendidofilaria (Avifilaria) mavis whose specific name mavis derives from this thrush. A Russian study of blood parasites showed that all
6106-520: The play of Aeschylus (525–456 BC), Queen Clytemnestra welcomes back her husband Agamemnon by decorating the palace with purple carpets. In 950 BC, King Solomon was reported to have brought artisans from Tyre to provide purple fabrics to decorate the Temple of Jerusalem . Alexander the Great (when giving imperial audiences as the basileus of the Macedonian Empire ), the basileus of
6192-402: The redwing's call but shorter. The alarm call is a chook-chook becoming shorter and more strident with increasing danger. The male's song, given from trees, rooftops or other elevated perches, is a loud clear run of musical phrases, repeated two to four times, filip filip filip codidio codidio quitquiquit tittit tittit tereret tereret tereret , and interspersed with grating notes and mimicry. It
6278-414: The resident male remains in his breeding territory, singing intermittently, but the female may establish a separate individual wintering range until pair formation begins in the early spring. During migration, the song thrush travels mainly at night with a strong and direct flight action. It flies in loose flocks which cross the sea on a broad front rather than concentrating at short crossings (as occurs in
6364-521: The rest of Great Britain and Ireland and on mainland Europe in France , Belgium , the Netherlands and possibly somewhat further east. It has brown upperparts which are warmer in tone than those of the nominate form, an olive-tinged rump and rich yellow background colour to the underparts. It is a partial migrant with some birds wintering in southern France and Iberia . This form intergrades with
6450-476: The short wavelength end of the visible spectrum, between approximately 380 and 450 nanometers, whereas purple is the color of various combinations of red, blue, and violet light, some of which humans perceive as similar to violet. On a chromaticity diagram , the straight line connecting the extreme spectral colors (red and violet) is known as the line of purples (or 'purple boundary'); it represents one limit of human color perception . The color magenta used in
6536-421: The slogan The Purple Shall Govern . The violet or purple necktie became very popular at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, particularly among political and business leaders. It combined the assertiveness and confidence of a red necktie with the sense of peace and cooperation of a blue necktie, and it went well with the blue business suit worn by most national and corporate leaders. The meanings of
6622-558: The song thrush also damages commercial fruit crops in that country. As an introduced species it has no legal protection in New Zealand, and can be killed at any time. The song thrush typically nests in forest with good undergrowth and nearby more open areas, and in western Europe also uses gardens and parks. It breeds up to the tree-line, reaching 2,200 metres (7,200 feet) in Switzerland . The island subspecies T. p. hebridensis breeds in more open country, including heathland , and in
6708-544: The song thrush may act as a reservoir for the disease. The song thrush is omnivorous , eating a wide range of invertebrates , especially earthworms and snails , as well as soft fruit and berries . Like its relative, the blackbird, the song thrush finds animal prey by sight, has a run-and-stop hunting technique on open ground, and will rummage through leaf-litter seeking potential food items. Land snails are an especially important food item when drought or hard weather makes it hard to find other food. The thrush often uses
6794-578: The splendour of his purple cloak, and that Nero forbade the use of certain purple dyes. In the late empire the sale of purple cloth became a state monopoly protected by the death penalty. According to the New Testament , Jesus Christ , in the hours leading up to his crucifixion , was dressed in purple (πορφύρα: porphura ) by the Roman garrison to mock his claim to be ' King of the Jews '. The actual color of Tyrian purple seems to have varied from
6880-456: The sunlight the juice turned white, then yellow-green, then green, then violet, then a red which turned darker and darker. The process had to be stopped at exactly the right time to obtain the desired color, which could range from a bright crimson to a dark purple, the color of dried blood. Then either wool, linen or silk would be dyed. The exact hue varied between crimson and violet, but it was always rich, bright and lasting. Tyrian purple became
6966-478: The total area. The remaining nests were in woodlands (1% of total area). The winter habitat is similar to that used for breeding, except that high ground and other exposed localities are avoided; however, the island subspecies T. p. hebridensis will frequent the seashore in winter. The song thrush is not usually gregarious, although several birds may roost together in winter or be loosely associated in suitable feeding habitats, perhaps with other thrushes such as
7052-430: The traditional color wheel. In a slightly different variation, on the color wheel , purple is placed between magenta and violet. This shade is sometimes called electric purple (see shades of purple ). In the RGB color model , named for the colors red, green, and blue, used to create all the colors on a computer screen or television, the range of purples is created by mixing red and blue light of different intensities on
7138-534: The western Palaearctic , there is evidence of population decline, but at a level below the threshold required for global conservation concern (i.e., a reduction in numbers of more than 30% in ten years or three generations) and the IUCN Red List categorises this species as of " Least Concern ". In Great Britain and the Netherlands, there has been a more than 50% decline in population, and the song thrush
7224-557: The wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture ! The song also inspired the nineteenth-century British writer Thomas Hardy , who spoke in Darkling Thrush of the bird's "full-hearted song evensong/Of joy illimited", but twentieth-century British poet Ted Hughes in Thrushes concentrated on its hunting prowess: "Nothing but bounce and/stab/and
7310-547: Was introduced on both the main islands, the song thrush quickly established itself and spread to surrounding islands such as the Kermadecs , Chatham and Auckland Islands . Although it is common and widespread in New Zealand, in Australia only a small population survives around Melbourne . In New Zealand, there appears to be a limited detrimental effect on some invertebrates due to predation by introduced bird species, and
7396-534: Was the first of a series of modern industrial dyes which completely transformed both the chemical industry and fashion. Purple was popular with the pre-Raphaelite painters in Britain, including Arthur Hughes , who loved bright colors and romantic scenes. At the turn of the century, purple was a favorite color of the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt , who flooded his pictures with sensual purples and violets. In
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