32 BEDBEEAST. 



window-curtain of a bed-room at Roydon Hall; and another 

 behind a figure on the top of a small monument in Thorpe 

 Church, the old ones entering through a broken pane of glass in a 

 window, and feeding their young during Divine service. A 

 pair of Robins quartered themselves with their nest in a 

 bed-room in a gentleman's house; and another in a skull, 

 dug up with a number of others, near the old wall of Clonmel, 

 supposed to have lain buried there since the time when the 

 town was beseiged by Oliver Cromwell, who doubtless 'made 

 a breach in the battlement,' as in the celebrated castle of 

 Blarney, in the adjoining county. Whether Cavalier or 

 Roundhead had owned the skull, it would puzzle Old Mortality 

 himself, or any other antiquary to decide 'Pulvis et umbra 

 sumus.' 



Mr. Frank Clifford, of Elvedon Rectory, near Thetford, 

 mentions one which began to build on the top of a book-case 

 in a study. Being disturbed from thence, the next day she 

 laid an egg on the carpet in the drawing-room, and began 

 another nest in a bed-room, on the top of the bed. The 

 housemaid turned it out several times, but as soon as her 

 back was turned, Robinetta resumed her work, so that at last 

 the room window was shut to keep her out. She then laid 

 another egg in the drawing-room, and then attempted to 

 establish her quarters in a store-room, but here too her room 

 seems to have been desired rather than her company, so that 

 she was banished thencefrom also. For several days she still 

 continued hovering about her favourite haunts, but never 

 again attempted to enter the house. 



Another singular circumstance occurred to the same family 

 the same year. They had a small box nailed to a gate-post 

 by the road side for the postman to drop their letters into 

 as he passed, and to hold others intended for him to take. 

 The aperture in the lid was only large enough to admit a 

 newspaper, but through this a Robin used to pass, and to 

 convey into the box materials for a nest, which was duly 

 finished and a number of eggs laid. A flower-pot in a garden 

 is a by no means unfrequent receptacle. In 1851 a nest 

 was built in a watering-can hung up against the wall of a 

 house in Union Terrace, York, and six eggs were laid in it. 



Gentle reader, if indeed you be of gentle blood, and will 

 read the following touching lines of the poet Thompson, 

 descriptive of the return of a bereaved parent bird to her 



