772 REDBREAST 
first sharp frost at once makes them change their habitation, and a 
heavy fall of snow drives them towards the homesteads for such 
food as they may find there, while, should severe weather continue 
long and sustenance become more scarce, even these stranger birds 
disappear—most of them possibly to perish—leaving only the few 
that have already become almost domiciled among men. On the 
approach of spring the accustomed spots are revisited, but among 
the innumerable returning denizens Redbreasts are apt to be 
neglected, for their song not being powerful is drowned or lost, as 
Gilbert White well remarked, in the general chorus. 
From its abundance, or from innumerable figures, the Redbreast 
is too well known to need description, yet there are very few 
representations of it which give a notion of its characteristic 
appearance or gestures—all so suggestive of intelligence. Its 
olive-brown back and reddish-orange breast, or their equivalents 
in black and white, may be easily imitated by the draughtsman ; 
but the faculty of tracing a truthful outline or fixing the peculiar 
expression of this favourite bird has proved to be beyond the skill 
of almost every artist who has attempted its portraiture. The 
Redbreast exhibits a curious uncertainty of temperament in regard 
to its nesting habits. At times it will place the utmost confidence 
in man, and again at times shew the greatest jealousy. The nest, 
though generally pretty, can seldom be called a work of art, and is 
usually built of moss and dead leaves, with a moderate lining of 
hair. In this are laid from five to seven white eggs, sprinkled or 
blotched with light red. 
Besides the British Islands, the Redbreast (which is the Mota- 
cilla rubecula of Linneus and the Lrithacus rubecula of modern 
authors) is generally dispersed over the continent of Europe, and 
is in winter found in the oases of the Sahara. Its eastern limits 
are not well determined. In Northern Persia it is replaced by a 
very nearly allied form, Hrithacus hyrcanus, distinguishable by its 
more ruddy hues,! while in Northern China and Japan another 
species, £. akahige, is found of which the sexes differ somewhat in 
plumage—the cock having a blackish band below his red breast, 
and greyish-black flanks, while the hen closely resembles the 
familiar British species—but both cock and hen have the tail of 
chestnut-red.? 
1 A similar intense coloration distinguishes some of the resident Redbreasts 
of the Canary Islands (Tristram, dts, 1890, p. 72), and one of them from 
Tenerife has been described as distinct under the name 7’. superbus (Konig, 
Journ. f. Orn. 1889, p. 183, 1890, pl. iii. figs. 1, 2). 
2 A beautiful bird now known to inhabit the Loochoo Islands, the Sylvia 
komadort of Temminck, of which specimens are very scarce in collections, is 
placed by some writers in the genus Hrithacus, but whether it has any affinity 
to the Redbreasts remains to be proved. Itis of a bright orange-red above, and 
