196 OUR NATIVE SONGSTERS. 



chirping all the while its note of friendly recogni- 

 tion, and looking up as if waiting for a smile or 

 word in return. 



Redbreasts are very useful little birds in slirub- 

 beries, orchards, and gardens, and in many places 

 are much encouraged by fruit gi'owers, on account 

 of the number of insects wliich they devour ; they 

 dart do-\vn upon these, as they lie among the 

 leaves or herbage, seize them when the plough or 

 the spade turns them up from the earth, and may 

 be seen shaking the earthworm in their bill, and 

 breaking it up into little pieces before eating it. 

 It must be owned that they will, now and then, 

 regale themselves with some ripe currants, or 

 cany some oft" to their nestlings ; and they will 

 bear away, too, the red berries from the daphne in 

 the garden, which are poisonous to all animals 

 save birds ; nor are they afraid of the almost 

 equally noxious fmits, which hang, in autumn, 

 from the boughs of the woody nightshade. In 

 winter, they are chieHy dependent on such grains 

 and crumbs as they can find about houses ; but 

 who w^ould deny to the little birds wdiich will 

 sing to us so sweetly, and which have during 

 the summer so effectually cleared our gardens of 



