251" HISTORY OF 



sat at table, or in their walks. I verily had never believed our 

 Pliny writing so many wonderful things concerning these little 

 creatures, had I not myself seen with my eyes, and heard them 

 with my ears uttering such things as I have related. Neither 

 yet can I of a sudden write all, or call to remembrance every 

 particular that I have heard." 



Such is the sagacity ascribed to the nightingale : it is but to 

 have high reputation for any one quality, and the world is ready 

 enough to give us fame for others to which we have very smaL 

 pretensions. But there is a little bird, rather celebrated for its 

 affection to mankind than its singing, which, however, in our 

 climate, has the sweetest note of all others. The reader already 

 perceives that I mean the red-breast, the well-known friend 

 of man, that is found in every hedge, and makes it vocal. The 

 note of other birds is louder, and their inflexions more capricious, 

 but this bird's voice is soft, tender, and well supported ; and 

 the more to be valued, as we enjoy it the greatest part of the 

 winter. If the nightingale's song has been compared to the 

 fiddle, the red-breast's voice has all the delicacy of the flute. 



The red- breast, during the spring, haunts the wood, the grove, 

 and the garden ; it retires to the thickest and shadiest hedge- 

 rows to breed in. But in winter it seems to become more do- 

 mestic, and often to claim protection from man. Most of the 

 soft-billed birds, the nightingale, the swallow, and the tit-mouse, 

 leave us in the winter, when their insect food is no longer offer- 

 ed in plenty ; but the red-breast continues with us the year 

 round, and endeavours to support the famine of winter by chirp- 

 ing round the warm habitations of mankind ; by coming into 

 those shelters where the rigour of the season is artificially ex- 

 pelled, and where insects themselves are found in greater num- 

 bers, attracted by the same cause. 



This bird breeds differently in different places : in some coun- 

 tries its nest is usually found in the crevice of some mossy bank, 

 or at the foot of a hawthorn in hedge-rows ; in others it chooses 

 the thickest coverts, and hides its nest with oak leaves. The 

 eggs are from four to five, of a dull white, with reddish streaks. 



The Lark, whether the sky-lark, the wood, or the tit-lark,* 



* The Crested-Lark, so called from the tuft with wliich its head is siir. 

 mounted, is more bulky than the common lark. The l)ill is longer, iuid th« 

 wings and tail shorter. Tlie wings, when folded, come to about lialf the 



