THE REDBREAST. 



53 



The habits of this most confiding and familiar little favourite are pretty 

 generally known to bird lovers ; it is fond of haunting the homes of mankind, 

 but more especially in the winter-time, when it thereby has a chance of 

 appeasing the pangs of hunger; but many pairs remain to breed in holes 

 and corners of garden, orchard or outhouse, and therefore are occasionally seen 

 about one's premises almost throughout the year. It would appear that at 

 the pairing season each male Robin claims, and defends against all intruders of 

 his own species, an area sufficiently large to provide food for his expected family, 

 and many are the battles which are fought, even to the death, in the early spring. 



In the winter if you care to try the experiment of putting out a trap 

 baited with a lively mealworm, you may catch Robin after Robin without 

 difficulty ; but, in the spring, should you have a nest in your garden, you 

 will see one pair only ; should a stranger appear, he is chased and attacked 

 immediately ; woe be to him if he be the weaker bird, for even his death 

 will not appease the rage of his opponent ; mutilation alone being satisfactory 

 to his vengeful eye. 



The only time at which we miss the Redbreast about our homes is during 

 the moulting season ; for then it retires to the seclusion of the woods and 

 coverts of the country to change its clothing ; but no sooner has it donned 

 its bright winter dress than it is with us again. At this season when we 

 gladly welcome the reappearance of our trustful little friend, and delight, when 

 gardening, to watch it impudently hopping about within a foot of our spade, 

 or even for the nonce alighting on it to peep into the earth we have just 

 turned over,* the Latin races are capturing this charming bird in myriads and 

 slaughtering them for food. 



Excepting when on migration the Robin rarely flies high or for great 

 distances. The flight itself is widely undulatory ; the moment it alights and 

 every half minute or so subsequently if it should have settled on a branch, 

 it goes through a spasmodic little stooping action accompanied by a lowering 

 of the head, flip of the wings and an upward jerk of the tail : on the earth 

 it proceeds by long hops, with a pause and the characteristic epileptic stoop 

 after every few hops. 



The building site of this bird varies almost endlessly, "fany hollow into 



*When digging one day in my garden a Robin hopped between my feet alighting on the top of my spade, 

 from which, a moment before, I had removed my foot, and there it sat peeping into the hole and then glancing 

 sideways up in my face as if asking me to continue to turn over the earth; a feat which I could not accom- 

 plish without disturbing the bird. 



t Mr. Frohawk writes that a pair of Robins built on the bend of a gutter pipe to his house in 1894 and 

 1895, at a height of 20 feet from the ground : the pipe was slightly concealed by a few entangled spra}-s of 

 Ampelopsis Veitchii : the situation was identical each year. 



