8844 



Birds. 



neighbourhood of houses is the exception and not the rule. A friend has drawn my 

 attention to some remarks on the robin by the late J. Rennie, M.A., a close and very 

 accurate observer of nature. He says, " It is no less an erroneous notion that the red- 

 breast, during summer, flies from the habitation of man, which he has haunted during 

 winter, nesting in wild and solitary places. Even in the near vicinity ~f London, — in 

 Copenhagen Fields, Chelsea, Battersea Fields, Kennington, Peekham, Deptford, 

 Greenwich, — wherever, indeed, there is a field and a few trees, we have heard redbreasts 

 singing during the whole summer." Such is also our experience, and I know it to my 

 cost, for they are very partial to red and white currants and also to raspberries ; they 

 have no objection to a sly nibble at a May Duke cherry. Secondly, your correspondent 

 seems to think the robin a kind and gentle bird, " so unnatural" does he consider the 

 charge against them. Now it is a well-known fact that it is a very quarrelsome and 

 pugnacious bird, and two of them rarely meet without a fight. A gentleman, whose 

 name was well-known some years ago, writing of the robin, says it is " instinctively 

 pugnacious." < x Mr. Thompson mentions a case of two robins which began fighting in 

 one of the most frequented parts of Margate. " They struggled together, and fell at 

 the feet of the passengers, ro.se in the air, still fighting, and finally fell into the water, 

 where they still clung together most pertinaciously." The same writer says he never 

 observed this pugnacity in any season but the autumn ; so that their extreme 

 pugnacity after the breeding season is here vouched for on the best authority. There 

 are two reasons given in Captain Hadfield's communication why robins should not be 

 common. First, " Their great tarn en ess and familiarity make them an easy prey to 

 cats." That cats are very fond of killing and devouring birds I readily allow, but from 

 some unaccountable reason there are few cats (I never knew one) that would either 

 eat a shrew mouse or a robiu. In our neighbourhood the chaffinch and the hedge- 

 sparrow, during the spring and latter pa.it of the year, haunt the doors, gardens and 

 stack-yards in droves, and are nearly as familiar as the robin, and yet they are always 

 abundant. For one robin you may see a hundred chaffinches and hedgesparrows. 

 Mr. Whatt has truly said that they possess great advantages over other birds. Their 

 nests are respected by nest plunderers, they possess a perfect immunity from the sports- 

 men, and are petted, fed and sheltered during the inclement weather. Secondly, 

 " Being a tender and sparsely feathered species many perish of a severe winter, parti- 

 cularly in northern counties." I think there are few persons at all acquainted with 

 the robin and its habits that will agree to this proposition. I consider the robin to be 

 as well feathered as the hedgesparrow, and its great familiarity is an advantage to it 

 in the winter, (or it will in very severe winters take refuge in the cottage kitchen, in 

 cowsheds and stables ; and I believe it suffers less from cold and hunger than any of 

 our small birds. As far as Mr. Whatt is concerned I think your correspondent has 

 not thrown any light on his doubts ; neither has he convinced me that the popular 

 notion is incorrect— J. Ran son ; York. 



Black Redstart at Winchester. — Last Tuesday (October 26th) a black redstart was 

 shot in my garden by Mr. Malcolm Wykeham Martin. It was accompanied by another, 

 which has disappeared. I noticed that this bird is fond of alighting on a stone, a door 

 step or a dead branch of a tree, when it dips its body and jerks up its tail like a water 

 ouzel. The sooty black body and red tail are conspicuous while it is on the wing. — 

 C. A . Johns ; Win Ion House, Winchester. 



Singular Nesting Place of the Pied Wagtail.— For some years past a pair of chimney 

 swallows have built their nest and reared their young in one of our chimneys, but this 



