THE REDBREAST. 55 



Our favourite is very pugnacious, and immediately 

 attacks any small bird, including those of its own kind, 

 which may venture to intrude upon its favourite haunt. 

 While visiting lonely and retired parts of woods and planta- 

 tions during summer and autumn, and waiting for a few 

 minutes quietly there, I have often been surprised at the 

 appearance of a Eedbreast on the scene. This habit of the 

 bird appears to be alluded to in the Flyting of Polwart^ and 

 Montgomery, where the former says to the latter — 



Into the land where thou was born, 



I read but nought that it was skant 

 Of cattel, clething, and of corn, 



Where wealth and well-fair baith doth want. 

 Now, tade-face, take this for no tant, 



I hear your housing is right fair, 

 Where howlring howlets ay doth hant, 



With Robin-Redbreast but repair.^ 



It builds its nest, which is composed of moss, dried grass, 

 and dead leaves, lined with hair, early in spring ; generally 

 placing it amongst the herbage of a bank by the side of a 

 road or ditch, or in a hole in an old wall, but it is found in 

 various other positions. A remarkable situation for the nest 

 is mentioned in the Berwickshire Advertiser of the 23rd of 

 May 1845, by a correspondent in Coldstream : — "A pair of 

 Eobins, seeking for a place to build, fixed on the sleeve of a 

 coat hanging in a shed at The Hirsel gardens. The hen 

 bird is now sitting on six eggs, and, undismayed, seems to 



1 It would appear that this was Sir Patrick Home, the fifth of Polwart, and 

 sixth in lineal descent from the first Sir David Home of "Wedderburn, who died 

 in 1469. Sir Patrick Home, the fifth of Polwart, died in 1689.— Genealogical 

 Table and Pedigrees in the Case of the Earldom of Marchmont, 1820. See also 

 The Men of the Merse, by Archibald Campbell Swinton, Younger of Kimmer- 

 ghame, Edin. 1858, p. 28. 



2 Sibbald, Chronicle of Scottish Poetry, James vi., 1567-1603, Edin. 1802, 

 vol. iii. p. 393. Mr. Hardy writes to me :— " I think the verse of Polwart is a 

 satirical description of Montgomery's dwelling— the haunt of Howlets and 

 Robins, which frequent dreary places. ' But repair ' — it cannot be amended — 

 there is no help for it." 



