THE REDBREAST. 30 
the nests which has this great elasticity, for what is 
taken from the dead birds is much inferior, being, as 
Pontoppidan says, “fat, subject to rot, and far from 
as light as what the female plucks to form a bed for 
its young.”* The cause of the difference has been 
attributed either to the down being in great perfec- 
tion at the breeding season, or to the bird’s plucking 
only her finest and most delicate feathers. 
The down taken from the nests becomes a valu- 
able article of commerce, being sold, when cleaned, 
for three rix dollars (two dollars seventy-five cents) 
a pound. In1750, the Icelandic company sold down 
amounting in value to about $4000, besides what was 
sent directly to Gluckstadt. Little or none of it is 
used inthe country where it isfound. In that rough 
climate, as Buffon remarks, the hardy hunter, clothed 
in a bearskin cloak, enjoys in his solitary hut a 
peaceful, perhaps a profound sleep, while, in polish- 
ed nations, the man of ambition, stretched upon a 
bed of eider-down and under a gilded roof, seeks in 
vain to procure the sweets of repose. 
The example of the eider-duck, in plucking the 
down from her body in order to keep her offspring 
warm, is not unmatched in the animal world. . 
The redbreast (Sylvia rubecula) is a very early 
builder, and usually selects for its nest a shallow 
cavity among grass or moss, in a bank, or at the 
root ofa tree, sometimes in the hole of a tree ina 
wood or secluded lane, far distant from its winter 
haunts about the cottage door or the farmyard. 
A pair of redbreasts in Kincardineshire, Scotland, 
from some accidental cause, began to build so early 
as Christmas ; but seeming to be well aware that 
the woods would not afford them either shelter or 
subsistence at this inclement season, particularly so 
far north, they made choice of a greenhouse. Not 
finding a suitable place in the lower part of the 
greenhouse, they selected a hole, as a house-spar- 
row would have done, in the corner of the ceiling; 
* Pontoppidan, Nat. Hist. of Norway. 
