I. THE ROBIN. 13 



word, how differently Milton's phrase will ring to 

 you, — " Those who thought no better of the Living 

 God than of a buzzard idol," — and how literal it 

 becomes, when we think of the actual difference 

 between a member of Parliament in Milton's time, 

 and the Busacador of to-day ; — and all this fresh- 

 ness^ and value in the reading, observe, come of your 

 keeping the word which great men have used for 

 the bird, instead of letting the anatomists blunder 

 out a new one from their Latin dictionaries. 



9. There are not so many nameable varieties, I 

 just now said, of robin as of falcon ; but this is 

 somewhat inaccurately stated. Those thirteen birds 

 represented a very large proportion of the entire 

 group of the birds of prey, which in my sevenfold 

 classification I recommended you to call universally, 

 "hawks." The robin is only one of the far greater 

 multitude of small birds which live almost indiscrimi- 

 nately on grain or insects, and which I recommended 

 you to call generally " sparrows " ; but of the robin 

 itself, there are two important European varieties — one 

 red-breasted, and the other blue-breasted. 



10. You probably, some of you, never heard of 

 the blue-breast ; very few, certainly, have seen one 

 alive, and, if alive, certainly not wild in England. 

 Here is a picture of it, daintily done,* and you 



* Mr. Gould's, in his " Birds of Great Britain." 



