KEDBREAST. 229 



The song of the Robin is sweet and plaintive, but not 

 very powerful. White of Selborne says, " Redbreasts sing 

 all through the spring, summer, and autumn. The reason that 

 they are called autumn songsters is, because in the two first 

 seasons their voices are drowned and lost in the general 

 chorus ; in the latter their song becomes distinguishable. 

 Many songsters of the autumn seem to be the young male 

 Redbreasts of that year." 



As the song of the Missel Thrush is said to foretell the 

 rising storm, so may the Redbreast claim to be considered a 

 part of the naturalist"'s barometer. A Avriter in an early 

 volume of the Magazine of Natural History says, " On a 

 summer evening, though the weather be unsettled, he some- 

 times takes his stand on the topmost twig that looks up to 

 the sky, or on the house-top, singing cheerfully and sweetly : 

 when this is observed, it is an unerring promise of succeeding 

 fine weather." 



Miller, in his Beauties of the Country, page 81, says, 

 " the Robin does not sing after twilight ;" yet he is one of 

 the latest among birds to retire to roost, and one of the first 

 to be seen moving in the morning, requiring apparently but 

 little sleep. 



The Redbreast, like the Spotted Flycatcher and some 

 other birds, is remarkable for the peculiarity of the situation 

 in which it sometimes builds its nest. A Avriter in the Field 

 Naturalist"'s Magazine states, that a pair of Robins chose for 

 their abode a small cottage, which, though not actually inha- 

 bited, was constantly used as a depository for potatoes, har- 

 ness, &c. and repeatedly visited by its owners. It closely 

 adjoined a large blacksmith"'s shop; but neither the noise of 

 the adjacent forge nor the frequent visits of the owners of 

 the cottage deterred these fearless settlers. They entered 

 through a window-frame, the lattice of which had been re- 

 moved ; and in a child's covered cart, which, with its horse 



