54<6 Fragments of Ornithology. 



small floating body that was carried down with the water. 

 When the object got opposite him, he darted upon it, clasped 

 it with his claws, and flew away. It proved, however, too 

 heavy for him : he was obliged to relax his grasp, and let it 

 drop again into the water. Not to be thwarted, however, 

 he again took his station upon another twig, lower down the 

 stream: there he awaited the arrival of the object; again 

 repeated his former operation ; and finally bore away the prize. 

 Is there not forethought, contrivance, consideration, and 

 something very nearly approaching to the process of reason- 

 ing, evidenced in this case ? 



The pugnacity of the redbreast is too well known to render 

 it necessary for me to give many instances of it : the following 

 anecdote, however, may not be altogether uninteresting: — A 

 neighbour of mine has a small arbour erected in his garden^ 

 to which he frequently resorts, and here he has been in the 

 habit, during the summer, of casting some crumbs of biscuit, 

 bread, or other food, to a redbreast that frequented the place. 

 This had been so often repeated, that the bird at last grew so 

 familiar, that, whenever it saw any person approach the arbour, 

 it immediately followed ; and there it hopped about, waiting 

 every stray crumb, and almost careless of all efforts to scare 

 him away. A short time back, another redbreast was cap- 

 tured in an out-building, and, having been placed in a cage, 

 was hung up in the arbour. Here, however, he found no 

 repose ; for the redbreast that had been in the habit of visit- 

 ing the place no sooner discovered the intruder, than he at- 

 tacked the cage with the utmost possible fury, beating it with 

 his wings, and pecking at it with his beak in all the furious 

 ways that he, in his petty rage, could devise ; and, when he 

 discovered that he could not reach the intruder, he kept a 

 constant and vigilant watch over the captive, scarcely ever 

 leaving the place, and taking every opportunity of giving him 

 every annoyance in his power, until his enemy died, which he 

 did in the course of a few days. 



I must not, however, load the shoulders of my redbreasted 

 friend with vices, without, at the same time, recording his vir- 

 tues. The familiarity of the robin is almost as notorious as 

 his pugnacity ; it is, however, reckoned a bad omen, by the 

 vulgar, when a robin affects attachment to any particular per- 

 son : it is accounted a forerunner of death. Many are the 

 stories which I have heard in corroboration of this^a^; I 

 am happy, however, in having it in my power to record one 

 instance in which death has not been found to be the insepar- 

 able result of visitation, in this case daily, from this little bird. 

 A friend of mine, in a neighbouring town, has a small garden 



