io8 THE RIVER-SIDE NATURALIST. 



with his attention to the bread and to these interlopers, 

 how perplexed he is ; and if four come, he gives it up 

 and flies away. If a chaffinch comes he seems to hesitate, 

 but every feather becomes erect, and he makes himself as 

 big as two. The chaffinch also does not like his appear- 

 ance, and hesitates to approach the bread. Then if 

 another chaffinch should come, the two set upon Master 

 Robin and drive him off. But though I have often looked 

 for it, I have never seen two birds of different species 

 combine in the attack, though in the absence of the robin 

 they have no apparent jealousy of each other, and all feed 

 together, the robin being the only one amongst them which 

 seems to take a line of his own." 



The red breast appertains to both sexes. Their alarm- 

 note is a sharp Tick-tick, but when the young are hatched 

 and the nest is approached, this is changed to a short, 

 wailing, plaintive pipe. The young, till the first moult, are 

 speckled. 



Rogers wrote the following epitaph on a robin red- 

 breast : 



" Tread lightly here ; for here 'tis said, 

 When piping winds are hush'd around, 

 A small note wakes from underground, 



Where now his tiny bones are laid. 



No more in lone and leafless groves, 

 With ruffled wing and faded breast, 



His friendless, homeless spirit roves ; 

 Gone to the world where birds are blest ! 



Where never cat glides o'er the green, 



Or schoolboy's giant form is seen ; 



But love and joy, and smiling spring, 



Inspire their little souls to sing." 



THE BLACK-CAP. 



Where the stream flows by gardens or shrubberies we 

 often hear the song, and still more often the warning note, 

 of the BLACK-CAP (Sylvia atricapilld), which amongst the 

 Sylviidce claims the second place as a songster (the nightin- 



