262 BRITISH BIRDS. 
ERITHACUS RUBECULA. 
THE ROBIN. 
(PxatE 9.) 
Ficedula rubecula, Briss, Orn. iii. p. 418 (1760). 
Motacilla rubecula, Zinn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 337 (1766); et auctorum plurimorum— 
(Seopoli),( Temminck), (Gould), ( Gray), (Heuglin), (Salvadori), (Newton), (Shelley), 
( Dresser), (Irby), (Blanford), &c. 
Sylvia rubecula (Linn.), Scop. Ann. I. Hist, Nat. i. p. 156 (1769). 
Curruca rubecola (Linn.), Leach, Syst. Cat. Mamm. &c. Brit, Mus, p. 25 (1816). 
Curruca rubecula (Zinn.), Forst. Syn. Cat, Brit. B. p, 54 (1817). 
Ficedula rubecula (Linn.), Bote, Isis, 1822, p. 553. 
Dandalus rubecula (Linn.), Bote, Isis, 1826, p. 972. 
Erythacus rubecula (Linn.), Swains, Faun, Bor,-Amer., Birds, p. 488 (1831). ’ 
Rubecula familiaris, Blyth, Field Naturalist, i. p. 424 (1833). 
Rhondella rubecula (Linn.), Rennie, White's Selborne, p. 437 (1888). 
Lusciola rubecula (Zinn.), Keys. u. Blas, Wirb. Eur. pp. lviii, 191 (1840), ) 
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Rubecula rubecula (Linn.), Bonap. Consp. i. p. 295 (1850). 
Luscinia rubecula (Zinn.), Sundev. Sv. Fogl, p. 56 (1856). 
The Robin, so closely associated with all our earliest recollections of the 
bird-world, the ever-trustful, pert, and lively little favourite and companion 
of man, is weleome everywhere, protected and encouraged; and hence its 
distribution is a wide one, and its numbers as large as its popularity is 
universal. Wherever man’s abode may be, if only surrounded by trees 
and shrubs, even a garden alone, the Robin is almost surely found, 
Throughout Great Britain and Ireland it is everywhere a well-known bird _ 
in those localities where there is sufficient cover. The Robin, like the : 
Sparrow, is a close attendant on cultivation and improvement. Formerly 
it was a rare bird on the wild and desolate Hebrides; but now it is com- { 
paratively common, as improvement and the planting of trees and-shrubs _ 
have increased. It breeds as far north as the Orkneys, but has not yet — 
been known to do so on the Shetlands, and only rarely occurs on the — | 
Paroes in the autumn. The Robin breeds throughout Europe as far 4 
north as the Arctic circle, rarely beyond; but becomes of far less frequent 
occurrence in Russia, and is not known to breed east of the Ural Moun- ~ 
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In those districts where the winters are severe, it migrates southwards in ‘ 
autumn to South Europe, North Africa, Palestine, and the cultivated 
districts of North-west Turkestan. It is said to be a resident, though 
rare, in South Persia. 
The Robin has one very near ally, the Persian Robin (Erithacus hyr- 
canus), inhabiting the forests of the southern shores of the Caspian, west- 
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