10 
surface of it),—grey at the root, where the down is,—tinged, and 
only tinged, with red at the part that overlaps and is visible; so 
that, when three or four more feathers have overlapped it again, 
all together, with their joined red, are just enough to give the 
colour determined upon, each of them contributing a tinge. 
Innumerable are the tales told of Robins especially bearing on three 
points, their tameness, familiarity, and friendliness with man, their 
pugnacity with other birds in general and with their own species 
in particular, and the remarkable sites chosen for their nests. I 
will just mention some of these sites. A hole in the mizen’ mast 
of the Victory made by a cannon ball; a myrtle in the hall ofa 
house, this being stopped ; the cornice of the drawing room, this 
being stopped ; a new shoe on a shelf in the drawing room, this 
being nearly completed was removed by the owner of the shoe to 
an old shoe, after which’ the nest was finished, the eggs laid and 
duly hatched. A shelfina pantry amongst bottles, the pantry 
being visited once or twice every day when the bird would only fly 
on to the floor; the head of a shark ina museum. The festoons 
of curtains in a dining room. A pigeon-hole bookshelf in a school 
constantly frequented by seventy children. The large Bible on the 
reading desk of the parish church of Hampton in Warwickshire. 
A similar place in Collingbourne, Kingston Church, Wiltshire, the 
cock bird feeding its young during service. A letter box on a gate 
post, &c. &c. There is a popular error that the cock robin alone 
has a red breast, but the fact is that the plumage of the two sexes 
is practically alike. 
The Sparrow, Passer domesticus, is the proverbial figure of com- 
monness and worthlessness, and yet it is a very interesting bird. 
Not nearly so trim or brightly coloured as the robin, not usually so 
friendly, with no pretty song, yet the sparrow has many interest- 
ing ways, and we should speedily miss him if he failed to frequent 
our gardens and streets. The town birds suffer much in their 
plumage from the smoke and frequent contact with chimneys and 
bricks and mortar in general, but when the young birds have just 
attained to their brightest full-grown colouring, they are by no 
means the dingy sombre, ragged and torn specimens that so often 
come for our crumbs in winter, the head, neck, and wings have 
many fine and various shades of brown, making prettily curved 
and variously shaped figures from the head to the tail. Many an 
invalid in bed has been cheered by our untidy and smoky little 
friends chirping and feeding on an out of the way window sill 
which rarer birds will not frequent. The following quotation is I 
think very discriminating :—‘‘ Wherever this bird is met with, his 
character is much the same—bold, pert, and familiar ; mstead of 
the gentle and pleasing confidence displayed towards the human 
race by the Redbreast, the Nightingale, the Redstart, and some 
EE 
