252 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. IX. 



until he is satisfied does the smaller one resume 

 his breakfast. But the pugnacious robin is not 

 to be so scared. It is true he cannot cling 

 while fighting like the tits ; but he takes his 

 stand on the window-sill, ruffles his plumage out 

 to make the most of his size, and attacks Parus 

 major by successive flights, assaulting him from 

 below. The tit gives way, and the redbreast 

 then makes a series of flying pecks at the suet' 



Of the throstle he says : — 



1 There are a few old cherry trees in the 

 garden ; one of them a Bigarreau. This I 

 netted in my first summer's possession to pre- 

 serve the tempting fruit. When the dish came 

 to table, I thought of the frequent pleasures 

 which the morn and evening w T arblings of the 

 little robbers had given me, and felt ashamed at 

 fencing off what I could cheaply get, as fresh 

 and better, from neighbouring market gardens. 

 I never repeated the practice, but left Bigarreaus 

 with the other cherries as " salary of the orches- 

 tra." 



' Sparrow {Passer domesticus). — Our colony 

 remains pretty stationary as to numbers ; they 

 are never molested, and are fed in winter. 

 Being formerly accustomed to coax these town 

 birds at that season to the windows of my 

 official residence in Lincoln's Inn Fields, I was 

 hardly prepared to do justice to the well-marked, 

 agreeable, un-sooted attire which both sexes, and 



