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MISCELLANKOUS NOTICES. 67 



The liedbrcast, (Erythaca rubecula.) — With much truth it may indeed be maintained, that 

 this dear little English songster la a daily ministrant to our pleasures, for I have very carefully 

 made it an object of study ; and even during the period of moulting I find the same bird will 

 not, in individual instances, desert its habitat. On the whole (speaking of the body of Kcdbreasts,) 

 I will not maintain that they are true to their haunts; but this I know, that upwards of a 

 score of these "Sacred" birds, in various localities known to me, have for the whole year been 

 very faithful in retaining only one and the same dwelling-place: they have never, even for a 

 day, deserted their location, even in the moulting season ; but true and dear, have been welcome 

 visitants; and evinced as much tamcness as in the winter; — liencc this attachment to a par- 

 ticular spot has cnabl(!d mo to mark their song; and I discover that the months, May and 

 June, are those in which we hear them the least; though even then the birds sing gaily at 

 noon to their broods. Late in August and in September, the Robin certainly is very sweet, 

 I think as sweet aa at any time; for our gardens being then destitute of small fruits and 

 seeds, he appears at once to seek our doorways and windows, and beg for food. The contrast 

 from perfect silence to rich but solitary music is great ; for in September, we seldom hear any 

 birds but the "Window Swallow early in the morning, or at the evening twilight, and the 

 Lark from eight a. m. till noon, except the Redbreast, and he scarcely passes an hour without 

 a flood of song. I hear him as early as five a.m., and as late as seven P.M.; and as I 

 listen I am insensibly drawn into a train of very grateful reflection, to find the favour of our 

 God so pleasingly portrayed as it is, in never deserting the great page of Nature, for a record 

 of himself is ever found there; and the Redbreast with its never-ceasing song, is one of the 

 plainest illustrations to me.— G. R. Twinn, Bawburgh Hill, near Norwich, February 9th., ISo-l. 



Note on the Wren, (Troglodytes Europccus.) — Hunting the Wren on Christmas Day lias been 

 a pastime in the Isle of Man from time immemorial. "It is founded on a tradition that a syren 

 fairy once upon a time infatuated the warriors of Mona, and by her charms decoyed them into 

 the sea, where they Avere drowned. She had tlius well-nigh stripped the country of its chivalry, 

 when a knight sprang up so bold and artful, that he had certainly compassed the death of the 

 enchantress, but that she escaped by taking the form of a AVren. The knight cast on her a 

 spell by which she was compelled on every Christmas Day to appear in the same form, with 

 the definite sentence that she should ultimately perish hy human hands. From that time to 

 this, once every 3'ear from dawn till even, men and boys, with bows and arrows, sticks and 

 stones, pursue, pelt, and shoot the whole family of Wrens, in the hopes that the fairy one may 

 thus fall by their hands. The feathers of the slain are craved as charms to preserve mariners 

 from shipwreck, and many a Jack Tar conceals them in his bosom. The sport ended, the 

 supposed witch-Wren is, on St. Stephen's Day, affixed on the top of a pole decked with ever- 

 greens and bows of ribbons, and as the sportsmen march through the town in marshalled 

 triumph, and amid the blowing of horns, they sing — 



"We'll away to the woods, says Robin the Bobbin, 

 We '11 away to the woods, says Richard the Robin, 

 We '11 away to the woods, says Jacky the Laud, 

 We '11 away to the woods, says every one. 

 What will we do there? says Robin the Bobbin, etc. 

 We'll hunt the Wren, says Robin the Bobbin, etc. 

 Where is he? Where is he? says Robin the Bobbin, etc. 

 In yonder p'eon bush, says Robin the Bobbin, etc. 

 How can we get him down? says Robin the Bobbin, etc. 

 With sticks and stones, says Robin the Bobbin, etc. 

 He 's down, He 's down, says Robin the Bobbin, etc." 



The sport is now (1853.) pursued by the boys, merely for the sake of the few pence to bo 

 realized from the exhibition, and the sale of the charmed feathers."— Zuiggin's Illustrated 

 Guide to the Isle of Man. 



I have known many Wren's nests in hedges, usually in brambles, four or five feet from the 

 grotmd; also one in a hole in a barn wall, where the scalfolding pole had been fixed; and several 

 placed against the trunks of trees, as high as twelve feet. I am told Wrens are infested with 

 vermin.— In a letter from James Croome, Esq., to the Rev. F. 0. Morris. Douglas, 1853, 



