REDEREAST. 249 
accordingly acquired some familiar domestic name in al- 
most every country of Europe. 
The song of the Robin is sweet and plaintive, but not 
very powerful. White of Selborne says, “‘ Redbreasts 
sing all through the spring, summer, and autumn. The 
reason that they are called autumn songsters is, because 
in the two first seasons their voices are drowned and 
lost in the general chorus: in the latter their song be- 
comes distinguishable. Many songsters of the autumn 
seem to be the young male Redbreasts of that year.” 
As the song of the Missel Thrush is said to foretell 
the rising storm, so may the Redbreast claim to be con- 
sidered a part. of the naturalist’s barometer. A writer 
in an early volume of the Magazine of Natural History 
says, ‘On a summer evening, though the weather be 
unsettled, he sometimes takes his stand on the topmost 
twig that looks up to the sky, or on the house-top, singing 
cheerfully and sweetly: when this is observed, it is an 
unerring promise of succeeding fine weather.” 
Miller, in his Beauties of the Country, page 31, says, 
“the Robin does not sing after twilight ;” yet he is one 
of the latest among birds to retire to roost, and one of 
the first to be seen moving in the morning, requiring 
apparently but little sleep. 
The Redbreast, like the Spotted Flycatcher and some 
other birds, is remarkable for the peculiarity of the situa- 
tion in which it sometimes builds its nest. A writer 
in the Field Naturalist’s Magazine states, that a pair of 
Robins chose for their abode a small cottage, which, 
though not actually inhabited, was constantly used as a 
depository for potatoes, harness, &c. and repeatedly visited 
by its owners. It closely adjoined a large blacksmith’s 
shop; but neither the noise of the adjacent forge, nor the 
