268 ERITHACUS RUBECULA. 



over, and having a long porch built of the same materials be- 

 fore the door. Here is one found in Dalhousie woods, some 

 miles southward of Edinburgh, on the 22d April 1837. It is 

 bulky, rather loosely constructed, its external diameter five 

 inches and three quarters, its internal diameter two inches and 

 a half, its walls an inch and three-fourths in thickness. Its 

 basis is composed of moss and decayed leaves of trees, with 

 broad blades of grass ; the middle layer of fine stalks and leaves 

 of grass, mosses of several species, loosely interwoven, with a 

 few skeleton leaves ; the lining of hairs and wool of a white 

 colour, and a quarter of an inch thick. The eggs in this nest 

 were five, and their general number is five or six. They are 

 of a regular oval form, averaging nine and a half twelfths in 

 length, and seven and a fourth twelfths in their greatest breadth, 

 of a delicate reddish- white, faintly freckled with light purplish- 

 red, the markings thickest on the larger end, and sometimes 

 forming a kind of belt there. 



In summer the Robin, although not at all shy, is less fre- 

 quently observed, as it prefers the woods, thickets, and hedges 

 to the open fields. Although pugnacious enough on ordinary 

 occasions, it is not nearly so bold as many other small birds 

 when its nest is approached by man, but keeps hopping about 

 at some distance, and uttering a feeble cheep, without making 

 any manifest attempts to decoy him away ; yet it will attack 

 a cat, and is more than a match for any bird of its own size. 



To these observations of my own, I add the following by 

 my friend JMr Weir. " It is a mistaken notion that the Red- 

 breasts during summer remove from the habitations of man, 

 and build their nests in wild and secluded places. At a little 

 distance from my stable a pair have built on the same bank for 

 several successive years. Another pair built on the side of a 

 ditch, a few feet from the door of my shrubbery, and brought 

 to maturity six young ones, although people passed and repass- 

 ed the nest many times during the day. Another pair have 

 built for several years at the bottom of a hedge not far from 

 my house, and now have young ones (10th June 1837) which 

 are flying about, and are very tame. Many of those however 

 which in summer had resided at a distance, approach the 



