138 SPRING-TIDE. 



8. I cannot deny it: his pugnacity is 

 notorious, and it is well known that he 

 often cuffs his parents or his brothers soundly 

 a very unamiable trait on which poets 

 have charitably been silent. A friend of 

 mine sometimes amuses himself by setting 

 two robins to fight, which he effects in this 

 manner. Perceiving a single robin in his 

 garden he soon brings a second to the spot 

 by tapping sharply with the edge of one 

 shilling on the surface of another, and thus 

 imitating the abrupt, pert, petulant note of 

 the bird itself. The note of defiance is 

 quickly responded to, and a battle invariably 

 ensues. Still Robin will continue a favourite 

 with the countryman, and the couplet 



" The robin redbreast and the wren 

 Are God Almighty's cock and hen," 



be recited as long as the dialect I have 

 attempted to illustrate shall be known and 

 spoken. 



