230 THE RED-BREAST. 



the name of winter nightingale, which it bears in some places ; its song is 

 too simple and short ; it is a little couplet, composed of a strain of the lark 

 and one of the wren. The sounds tchondi, hondi, hondi are repeated 

 frequently and for a long time, always descending a sixth, and gradually 

 diminishing in power. This song is accompanied with an uninterrupted 

 movement of the wings and tail, and lasts through the year, except at the 

 moulting season. Some young ones, reared in confinement, will, if placed 

 beside a fine singing bird, learn enough of its song to embellish their own. 

 But, whatever may be asserted on the subject, they never succeed in imi- 

 tating the nightingale. When the dunnock disputes with its fellow cap- 

 tives for a place or for food its anger evaporates in a song, like the crested 

 lark and the wagtail. 



THE RED-BREAST. 



Motacilla rubecula, LINN^US ; Le Rouge-gorge, BUFFON ; Das Rothkelchen, 

 BECHSTEIN. 



THE red-breast is almost universally known in Europe. 

 It is five inches and three quarters long, two and a quarter of 

 which belong to the tail. The beak is five lines in length, 

 and horn brown, with the lower base and the inside yellow ; 

 the iris is deep brown ; the shanks, eleven lines in height, are 

 of the same colour ; the forehead, cheeks, and under part of 

 the body, from the beak to the bottom of the breast, are orange 

 red ; the upper part of the body and the wing-coverts dingy 

 olive ; the first wing-coverts have at their tip a little triangular 

 spot. 



The female, which is rather smaller, is not so orange- 

 coloured on the forehead, and this colour is not so bright upon 

 the breast ; the shanks are a purplish brown ; yellow spots 

 are almost alwaj^s absent from the wing-co verts; the old females 

 alone having very small yellow marks. 



The males of the first year, which are caught in the spring, 

 very much resemble the females : they have but very small 



