The Redwing 



A cold north wind, accompanied by snow and frost, drives 

 most of these birds away from our shores to sunnier climes : 

 their place, however, is soon taken, if the hard weather be 

 prolonged, by large immigrations of poor storm-driven birds 

 from the north of the Continent, who reach us with barely 

 sufficient strength to seek their food, and who receive, too 

 frequently, an inhospitable reception. Such wanderers 

 become exceedingly tame, and may be found hopping 

 disconsolately round our gardens within a foot or two 

 of us, and the mortality in such seasons as these must be 

 very great. Happily this extreme severity does not often 

 happen, and one is glad to think that as a rule our visitors, 

 driven to us by hard weather abroad, find sustenance in our 

 warmer, if still somewhat boisterous, climate. 



In April, that strange homing instinct which animates 

 almost every known bird, causes the Eedwings to leave 

 our hedgerows at their most beautiful time, and to seek a 

 northern home where they may settle down and rear their 

 young. There, where song-birds are scarce, his little warble, 

 which would be unnoticed here in our wealth of songsters, 

 is eagerly awaited, and eulogised as though it were the rich 

 outpourings of a nightingale. His nest is built on the 

 ground, or just above it at the foot of some bush, or even in 

 a crevice a short distance up the trunk of a tree ; but if 

 so far north as to be beyond the limit of tree growth, a 

 sloping bank or the shelter of some boulder will be selected 

 as the site. The nest is substantially built of grass with 

 a foundation of twigs, and is similar to that of our Blackbird, 

 to which species also the eggs, though slightly smaller, bear 

 a close resemblance. Two broods are sometimes reared in 



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