2l6 THE BIRDS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



some sing. In autumn, when most other birds are silent, it is 

 naturally appreciated. In range and some of the better notes it 

 approaches the song of the Nightingale. The autumn song is 

 often described as tender and sad, but it is full of exultant 

 phrases. The Robin, as is well known, is pugnacious, fighting 

 with his own kind and attacking other species ; yet in his most 

 furious bouts, with feathers ruffled and wings drooped like a 

 Gamecock, he will sing his challenges. As a silent Redbreast 

 is unusual, it is probable that the female sings, at any rate in 

 winter ; young birds will warble a few notes, even during their 

 first autumn moult. The explosive cry of anger, a cat-like spit, 

 the call tic^ tic, which when rapidly repeated becomes a skirl, 

 and a long-drawn seeep, are familiar, but exactly what they 

 mean varies with the cause of excitement. The rapidly re- 

 peated tics, used when mobbing a cat or other foe, are sounded 

 at roosting time. The bird is not an early rooster ; I have on a 

 winter evening on a lonely road been accompanied for a long 

 distance by a couple of Robins, whose shadowy forms flitted 

 before me ; the calls revealed their presence when they were 

 invisible in the dusk. 



The food is animal or vegetable, for though worms, insect 

 larvs, flies — often caught on the wing — and spiders are its main 

 diet, it will eat soft fruit, berries and seeds. In winter it will 

 accept most of our gifts, even bread-crumbs. I have seen it 

 picking flies from the surface of a pool. The peculiar attitudes 

 adopted during courtship have been described, but they are less 

 frequently observed than one would imagine. I watched a 

 pair in a tree ; the female, with fluffed-out feathers, always 

 keeping a little above the male. His head and neck were held 

 stiffly upward, the bill pointing towards the hen, all his feathers 

 depressed, but in both birds the tails were elevated so that 

 their tips actually pointed forward. The male feeds the female, 

 who receives his gifts with quivering wings, even before nest 

 building has begun. 



