THE ROBIN. 5I 



related of Robins, and numerous the descriptions 

 of curious nesting-places recorded. 1 Many such 

 will doubtless occur to every reader of these lines. 



An old name for the Redbreast is " Ruddock," 

 the meaning of which is illustrated in the word 

 " ruddy," and the bird is still known by this name 

 in some parts of England. Spenser writes of "the 

 ruddock warbling soft " (Epitfialamium y i. 82), and 

 Shakespeare has thus named it in one of his most 

 beautiful passages : 



" With fairest flowers, 



Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, 

 I'll sweeten thy sad grave : thou shalt not lack 

 The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose ; nor 

 The azur'd harebell, like thy veins ; no, nor 

 The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, 

 Outsweeten'd not thy breath : 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 furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none, 

 To winter-ground thy corse." 



Cymbeline, Act iv., sc. 2. 



Bishop Percy asks : "Is this an allusion to the 

 Babes in the Wood, or was the notion of the Red- 

 breast covering dead bodies general before the 



1 See Bishop Stanley's Familiar History of Birds > p. 223. 



