REDBREAST 59 



waggon should be placed in a shed in the yard, packed as it 

 was, till it should be convenient for him to send it off. While 

 it was in the shed, a pair of Robins built their nest among 

 some straw in it, and had hatched their young just before 

 it was sent off. One of the old birds, instead of being 

 frightened away by the motion of the waggon, only left 

 the nest from time to time for the purpose of flying to the 

 nearest hedge for food for its young, and thus alternately 

 affording warmth and nourishment to them, it arrived at 

 Worthing. The affection of this bird having been observed 

 by the waggoner, he took care in unloading not to disturb 

 the Robin's nest ; and the Robin and its young returned 

 in safety to Walton Heath, being the place from whence 

 they had set out ; the distance travelled not being less than 

 one hundred miles. Whether it was the male or female 

 Robin which kept with the waggon I have not been able 

 to ascertain ; but most probably the latter ; for what will 

 not a mother's love and a mother's tenderness induce her 

 to do ? " 



The eggs, generally five or six in number, are usually of 

 a delicate pale reddish white, faintly freckled with rather 

 darker red, most so at the larger end, where a zone or belt 

 is sometimes formed. Some are entirely white, without a 

 trace of marking, whilst others are so clouded with spots as 

 to hide the ground colour, and some deeply blotched and 

 streaked with dark reddish brown. 



I may here perhaps make the following quotation from 

 my " History of British Birds : "- 



"Gentle reader, if indeed you be of gentle blood, and 

 will read the following touching lines of the poet Thomson, 

 descriptive of the return of a bereaved parent bird to her 

 robbed home, if ever you have plundered a Robin's nest 



