158 SONG OF THE ROBIN. 



with us ; by supplication and importunity it becomes 

 a partaker of our bounty in a season of severity 

 and want ; and its seeming humbleness and neces- 

 sities obtain our pity ; but it slights and forgets 

 our kindnesses the moment it can provide for itself, 

 and is away to its woods and its shades. Yet it has 

 some little coaxing ways, and such fearless confi- 

 dence, that it wins our regard 5 and its late autumnal 

 song, in evening's dusky hour, as a monologue, is 

 pleasing, and redeems much of its character. The 

 universality of this bird in all places, and almost 

 at all hours, is very remarkable ; and perhaps there 

 are few spots so lonely in which it would not ap- 

 pear, did we commence digging up the ground. I 

 have often been surprised in the midst of woods, 

 where no suspicion of its presence existed, when 

 watching some other creature, to see the robin 

 inquisitively perched upon some naked spray near 

 me ; or, when digging up a plant in some very 

 retired place, to observe its immediate descent upon 

 some poor worm that I had moved. The robin 

 loses nearly all the characteristic colour from its 

 breast in the summer, when it moults, and only 

 recovers it on the approach of autumn, which, in 

 some measure, accounts for the extraordinary asser- 

 tion of Pliny, that the redbreast is only so in win- 

 ter, but becomes a firetail in summer. 



The object of the song of birds is not agreed 

 upon by ornithologists, and we will not now think 

 of it, but merely, in passing, note how singularly 

 timid the song of the robin is. The blackbird and 



