72 THE SMALLER BRITISH BIRDS. 



Our little English Kobin; 

 The bird tbat comes about our doors 



When autumn winds are sobbing? 

 Art thou the Peter of Norway bourn ? 



Their Thomas in Finland, 



And Russia far inland? 

 The bird who by some name or other 

 All men who know thee call thee brother." 



"Wo give this short extract from the poet Wordsworth, because it 

 alludes to some of the names of endearment by which this bird is 

 known in foreign countries; thus in Sweden he is called Tommi lAdin, 

 in Norway Peter Bonsmed, in Germany Thomas Ouidet. In England 

 we sometimes call him Bob, we are on such very familiar terms with 

 him, and they know and love him almost if not quite as well in nearly 

 all parts of Europe, in the colder countries of which he is a summer 

 visitant only. He has been found in the northern parts of Africa, and 

 also in Asia Minor, and Persia. His presence in the western hemisphere 

 has not been recorded, the bird known as the Robin in America is 

 quite a different species from 



"Robinet with ruddy breast, 

 Best known of all aud loved the best." 



A very bold bird is the Robin, exceedingly pugnacious, ready to 

 stand up for his rights, and fight to the death with a rival for the 

 affections of his mate, or a chosen nesting-place; terrible battles often 

 ensue between two of the males, and sometimes one is killed thus by 

 his own kith and kin. This readiness to quarrel and fight is the great 

 stain upon his character, and perhaps it may be the reason why he is 

 dressed, like a soldier, in red. Need we describe his plumage? nay, 

 every child is familiar with his appearance, from the tip of his short 

 pointed beak, to the end of his broadish, olive-brown, not over-long 

 tail, and down to his longish slender legs and toes of ashy brown. 



Stories about Robins are as plentiful, as, we were going to say, 

 "leaves in Valambrow," but perhaps our younger readers would hardly 

 know what that meant, so we will say, as blackberries in a fruitful 

 autumn; several are cited by Mr. Morris, in his very interesting volume 

 entitled ''Anecdotes in Natural History." Here is one of them taken 

 from "The Newcastle Courant." A granite-hewer, while at work in 

 Dalbeattie heard what seemed to be a bird's cry of distress, and going 

 to the spot from whence it proceeded, found a Robin in a state of 

 great agitation. A large adder had made its way up the face of the 

 quarry, and had -just got its head over the edge of a uest built among 



