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SYLVIA. 



alert to capture those insects when they appear on the 

 wing or in motion, but search for them in the chinks 

 of walls, the clefts of trees, and all other hiding places 

 in which they are likely to be found. The insects 

 which are so captured by the birds, are all matured 

 females ready for depositing their eggs, and as we have 

 said and it is an under statement the destruction 

 of one mature insect in this state is equivalent to 

 the destruction of a thousand larvee, the advantage 

 which the redbreasts give at this season, are almost 

 beyond the power of calculation. 



Besides its direct usefulness, which is thus very 

 great, there is something very pleasing in the familia- 

 rity of the redbreast. If it is fed with crumbs of 

 bread, or little bits of meat in the window sill, it will 

 not only return while the storm lasts, but it will, as is 

 said, v come back year after year to the very same 

 place. In the cottages of the upland places in the 

 north, where there is no regular chimney, and where 

 in consequence it is often necessary to keep the door 

 open in order so to confine the acrid smoke of turf and 

 wood to the upper part of the house as that the peo- 

 ple may be able to breathe, the robin will, after a few 

 pauses and lingerings in the porch and at the thresh- 

 old, come hopping on the floor, and even show the same 

 familiarity as if it were one of the family. This is a 

 little curious ; for the bird which is thus familiar with 

 man and his dwelling, and which will perch on the 

 shoulder of a person sitting still, or on the back of a 

 dog lying by the fire, has less familiarity with birds 

 in general, and with those of its own species in parti- 

 cular, than almost any other that can be named. In- 

 numerable anecdotes of it have been printed, and 

 there is probably no person who has been familiar 

 with the country, or even with the straggling outskirts 

 of towns, who could not, if so inclined, add to the list. 

 The progress of its familiarity is well told in Thorn- 

 son's " Winter " ; but the tale must be too familiar 

 to every body for needing to be repeated. We 

 shall only allude to one instance, in which the bird 

 appears to have taken up its regular abode in the 

 house for the winter, and yet returned to free nature 

 in the spring. In November 1788, a redbreast, shi- 

 vering with cold, tapped at the window of M. Gerardin. 

 The window was opened, and the bird perched with 

 the utmost confidence on the back of an elbow chair 

 near the fire. When it had recovered from the effects 

 of the cold, its first occupation was to attempt catch- 

 ing the few house flies which had been awakened from 

 their dormancy by the warmth of the apartment. It 

 was fed upon crumbs of bread and small shreds of 

 boiled beef ; and so well did it like its lodging and 

 board, that it not only remained during the winter, 

 but sung its hymns of gratitude as cheerfully every 

 morning as if it had been perched upon a twig in the 

 spring. It was particularly familiar with M. Gerardin ; 

 and although it did not actually assist him in his studies, 

 it amused him while engaged in them. It perched 

 upon his desk, and sometimes on his left hand while 

 he was writing ; in short, it was more familiar and at 

 home than the majority of birds which are reared 

 from the nest with the greatest care. In all this, 

 however, there was not the slightest degree of attach- 

 ment, but merely a very powerful instinctive attention 

 in the bird to its own personal comfort which is one 

 of the most necessary, and therefore one of the most 

 powerful, instincts in all animals; for when the season 

 came round, and the impulse of nature called it to the 

 woods, it flew away and returned no more. 



If circumstances render it necessary for the red- 

 breast to build its nest and rear its brood near the 

 habitation of rmm, it shows the sanae attention to its 

 own occupation, and the same indifference to what 

 they may be doing in its close vicinity. They may 

 work, and hammer, and make as much noise as they 

 please, without in the least disturbing the bird, if they 

 do not invade the place of its nest. Indeed, it hops 

 about near them, and scrutinizes with curious eye, as 

 if it devoted a part of the leisure of its own active life, 

 in superintending and seeing that they perform their 

 task with equal assiduity. 



This familiarity and curiosity often costs it its life ; 

 for they make it very apt to run into the snares of the 

 bird catcher. In Britain this is rarely taken advan- 

 tage of, because though redbreasts are very common 

 they are not very numerous at any particular spot ; 

 and the only small birds that will repay by their flesh 

 the trouble of catching them in Britain, are those that 

 flock numerously on the fields in the winter ; and 

 even they are attended to in particular places only. 

 But it is different on many parts of the continent with 

 little birds generally, and with the redbreast in par- 

 ticular. In many parts of France, and in particular 

 in the valley of the Moselle, redbreasts are very nu- 

 merous in the autumn, being attracted in great numbers 

 to the vineyards. The catching of them is there a con- 

 siderable trade. They are mostly carried to Paris, 

 where they are held in very high estimation by epi- 

 cures ; but they must be carried very quickly, as they 

 lose, in four and twenty hours, the flavour for which 

 they are so much esteemed when recent. 



The Blue-throated Warbler (S. suecica) has been 

 already described at some length, in this work, under 

 the name BLUE-BREAST, and with the synonymes of 

 " Fantail" and Pandicilla. We have little to add to 

 the description given in that article. The bird is far 

 more numerous in the north of Europe than the red- 

 breast, and it is found in much higher latitudes, and 

 at greater elevations upon the mountains. It is much 

 more of a marsh bird than the redbreast, and not quite 

 so much of a woodland one. Its nest is very often 

 in the cover of the dwarf birch, or the heath, and 

 generally among the wild willows which creep along 

 by the sides of the mountain-pools, rather than in the 

 woods properly so called ; and in winter, though 

 some of the birds descend to the low country, the 

 greater part migrate to the south. It has not the 

 familiar habits of the redbreast. In those situations 

 where it has only low and creeping bushes as a cover 

 to 4 the nest, with no trees in the neighbourhood, it 

 does not, at all times at least, sing from the perch, 

 but rises to a small height in the air, and sings hover- 

 ing on the wing. Its natural song is sweet, and con- 

 tains a very considerable number of modulations ; 

 and, from one or another of the birds, it is heard all 

 the night long we speak of Lapland, where the 

 night has no darkness. It is then that its song is 

 most pure, for it is a great mimic, and when the other 

 birds around it are in voice it imitates them all in suc- 

 cession. The Laplanders are very loud in praise of 

 its musical] powers, probably because song-birds are 

 but few there : and they may prefer it, as they do, to 

 the nightingale, upon the same principle that the 

 Highlandman gave preference to the hooded crow, 

 one of the most husky-voiced birds in existence, over 

 the parrot : " She speaks better Gaelic in the Hee- 

 lands than ta creen dtoo that will no be there." 

 It is rare in middle Europe, and still more so in the 



