I. THE ROBIN. 21 



of travelling. Of all birds, you would think he was 

 likely to do it in the cheerfullest way, and he does 

 it in the saddest. Do you chance to have read, 

 in the Life of Charles Dickens, how fond he was 

 of taking long walks in the night and alone .'' The 

 robin, en voyage, is the Charles Dickens of birds. 

 He" "always travels in the night, and alone: rests, in 

 the - day, wherever day chances to find him ; sings 

 a little, and pretends he hasn't been anywhere. 

 He goes as far, in the winter, as the north-west of 

 Africa ; and in Lombardy, arrives from the south 

 early in March ; but does not stay long, going on 

 into the Alps, where he prefers wooded and wild 

 districts. So, at least, says my Lombard informant. 

 I do not find him named in the list of Cretan 

 birds ; but even if often seen, his dim red breast was 

 little likely to make much impression on the Greeks, 

 who knew the flamingo, and had made it, under the 

 name of Phoenix or Phoenicopterus, the centre of their 

 myths of scarlet birds. They broadly embraced the 

 general aspect of the smaller and more obscure 

 species, under the term ^ovOo<;, which, as I under- 

 stand their use of it, exactly implies the indescribable 

 silky brown, the groundwork of all other colour in 

 so many small birds, which is indistinct among green 

 leaves, and absolutely identifies itself with dead ones, 

 or with mossy stems. 



