772 REDBREAST 



first sharp frost at once makes them change their habitation, and a 

 heavy fall of snow drives them towards the homesteads for such 

 food as they may find there, while, should severe weather continue 

 long and sustenance become more scarce, even these stranger birds 

 disappear most of them possibly to perish leaving only the few 

 that have already become almost domiciled among men. On the 

 approach of spring the accustomed spots are revisited, but among 

 the innumerable returning denizens Redbreasts are apt to be 

 neglected, for their song not being powerful is drowned or lost, as 

 Gilbert White well remarked, in the general chorus. 



From its abundance, or from innumerable figures, the Redbreast 

 is too well known to need description, yet there are very few 

 representations of it which give a notion of its characteristic 

 appearance or gestures all so suggestive of intelligence. Its 

 olive-brown back and reddish-orange breast, or their equivalents 

 in black and white, may be easily imitated by the draughtsman ; 

 but the faculty of tracing a truthful outline or fixing the peculiar 

 expression of this favourite bird has proved to be beyond the skill 

 of almost every artist who has attempted its portraiture. The 

 Redbreast exhibits a curious uncertainty of temperament in regard 

 to its nesting habits. At times it will place the utmost confidence 

 in man, and again at times shew the greatest jealousy. The nest, 

 though generally pretty, can seldom be called a work of art, and is 

 usually built of moss and dead leaves, with a moderate lining of 

 hair. In this are laid from five to seven white eggs, sprinkled or 

 blotched with light red. 



Besides the British Islands, the Redbreast (which is the Mota- 

 cilla rubecula of Linnaeus and the Erithacus rubecula of modern 

 authors) is generally dispersed over the continent of Europe, and 

 is in winter found in the oases of the Sahara. Its eastern limits 

 are not well determined. In Northern Persia it is replaced by a 

 very nearly allied form, Erithacus hyrcanus, distinguishable by its 

 more ruddy hues, 1 while in Northern China and Japan another 

 species, E. akahige, is found of which the sexes differ somewhat in 

 plumage the cock having a blackish band below his red breast, 

 and greyish-black flanks, while the hen closely resembles the 

 familiar British species but both cock and hen have the tail of 

 chestnut-red. 2 



1 A similar intense coloration distinguishes some of the resident Redbreasts 

 of the Canary Islands (Tristram, Ibis, 1890, p. 72), and one of them from 

 Tenerife has been described as distinct under the name T. supcrbus (Kb'nig, 

 Journ. f. Orn. 1889, p. 183, 1890, pi. iii. figs. 1, 2). 



2 A beautiful bird now known to inhabit the Loochoo Islands, the Sylvia 

 komadori of Temminck, of which specimens are very scarce in collections, is 

 placed by some writers in the genus Erithacus, but whether it has any affinity 

 to the Redbreasts remains to be proved. It is of a bright orange-red above, and 



