26 BIKD NOTES 



that ; what a very exceptional bird it is in many 

 ways, and how much more our own ! He has a 

 property in us too, at all events in our gardens and 

 homes. And he knows it : a full-grown robin 

 seems to have a quite singular sense of property 

 in a garden ; he will not, if he can prevent it, allow 

 any other robin to come into the particular 

 enclosure that he considers his own. He also 

 objects to unusual birds of other kinds. I have 

 often been called, to the window by the excited 

 warning note of the robin, and have found, some- 

 times indeed a cat, but more often an invasion of 

 unusual birds of a more or less interesting kind 

 a flock of chift'chaffs, a passing company of long- 

 tailed tits or golden-crested wrens, or a goldfinch 

 or even a greenfinch ; for the latter seldom comes 

 here, or the yellowhammer either, though both I 

 think are common on the hills and higher up the 

 valley. Even the marsh tit is sufficiently a stranger 

 to excite the indignant jealousy of the robin. 



Greenfinches wen; frequently here in the 

 autumn at one time ; but that was when I had a 

 tall and widely spreading sweet-briar in the middle 

 of the kitchen garden. The abundant fruit of this 

 tree attracted them, and very handsome they 

 looked quite splendid indeed poised on the 

 long arched and swinging branches covered with 

 scarlet hips. 



