106 THE RIVER-SIDE NATURALIST. 



With us the bird is so connected with our childhood 

 and its stories (for who does not know " The Children in 

 the Wood " or " Who Killed Cock Robin ? ") that to think 

 of eating him would take away the appetite entirely. 



Both male and female have the red breast, but the male 

 plumage is generally richer and brighter. How this soft- 

 billed bird lives through the hard winter months is a 

 marvel, and this circumstance is probably the origin of the 

 old couplet : 



" The robin and the wren 

 Are God A'mighty's cock and hen," 



as well as the supposed office of covering with leaves and 

 moss the dead bodies of unburied mortals. Robert Herrick 

 wrote an ode to robin redbreast, asking him to perform this 

 rite upon him : 



" Let thy last kindnesse be 

 With leaves and mosse work for to cover me ; 

 And while the wood nymphs my cold corpse inter, 

 Sing thou my dirge, sweet warbling chorister." 



Shakespeare gives the bird the same kind office : 



" The ruddock would 

 With charitable bill (O bill, sore-shaming 

 Those rich-left heirs, that let their fathers lie 

 Without a monument !) bring thee all this ; 

 Yea, and furred moss besides, when flowers are none 

 To winter-ground thy corse." Cymbeline, Act iv. sc. ii. 



The robin has a beautiful voice, and sings when all 

 other birds are becoming silent. He loves to frequent the 

 habitations of man, and we all know how fond he is of a 

 church, often joining in sweet melody the hymns of praise 

 poured forth by his human companions. 



It is stated as a well-known fact that a robin frequently 

 perched on one of the pinnacles of the organ in the 

 Cathedral of Bristol and joined the music with its song. 



Peter Pindar, in his ode to some robins in a country 

 churchyard, calls them " wild tenants of the fane," and 

 old Skelton, in his " Elegy on Philip-Sparrow," gives the 

 robin 



