THE REDBREAST. 33 



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. In 1750, 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 in the country where it is found. 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 of a tree, sometimes in the hole of a tree in a 

 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. 



