REDBREAST. 259 



accordingly acquired some familiar domestic name in al- 

 most every country of Europe. 



The song of the Robin is sweet and plaintive, but not 

 very powerful. White of Selborne says, " Redbreasts 

 sing all through the spring, summer, and autumn. The 

 reason that they are called autumn songsters is, because in 

 the two first seasons their voices are drowned and lost in 

 the general chorus ; in the latter their song becomes distin- 

 guishable. Many songsters of the autumn seem to be the 

 young male Redbreasts of that year." 



As the song of the Missell Thrush is said to foretell 

 the rising storm, so may the Redbreast claim to be con- 

 sidered a part of the naturalist's barometer. A writer 

 in an early volume of the Magazine of Natural History 

 says, " On a summer evening, though the weather be un- 

 settled, he sometimes takes his stand on the topmost twig 

 that looks up to the sky, or on the house-top, singing 

 cheerfully and sweetly : when this is observed, it is an 

 unerring promise of succeeding fine weather." 



Miller, in his Beauties of the Country, page 31, says, 

 " the Robin does not sing after twilight ; " yet he is one 

 of the latest among birds to retire to roost, and one of 

 the first to be seen moving in the morning, requiring 

 apparently but little sleep. 



The Redbreast, like the Spotted Flycatcher and some 

 other birds, is remarkable for the peculiarity of the situ- 

 ation in which it sometimes builds its nest. A writer 

 in the Field Naturalist's Magazine states, that a pair of 

 Robins chose for their abode a small cottage, which 

 though not actually inhabited was constantly used as a 

 depository for potatoes, harness, &c., and repeatedly visited 

 by its owners. It closely adjoined a large blacksmith's 

 shop ; but neither the noise of the adjacent forge, nor the 

 frequent visits of the owners of the cottage, deterred these 



