404 REDBREAST. 



may be found in woods and forests, but I am equally certain that a 

 great number do not go farther from their winter haunts than the 

 nearest hedge-row. Even in the near vicinity of London, in Copen- 

 hagen Fields, Chelsea, Battersea Fields, Kennington, Bermondsey, 

 Peckham, Deptford, Greenwich, wherever indeed there is a field and a 

 few trees, I have heard Redbreasts singing during the whole summer. 

 One has been in song all the summer, not a gun-shot from my house, 

 at Lee, where this paragraph was written ; and I have remarked another 

 singing for several months among some elms at Lewisham Bridge, 

 though there are houses all around, and the bustle of the public road 

 just below. The Redbreast does not indeed usually come to the cottage 

 for crumbs during summer, because then insects are plentiful ; and this 

 may have given rise to the common opinion. I once saw an instance, 

 however, at Compton Basset, in Wiltshire, in which a Redbreast made 

 a daily visit, in summer, within a cottage door to peck up what he could 

 find. It is worthy of remark, that Grahame's poetical sketch of the 

 Redbreast is much more true to nature than the statements of our 

 professed naturalists. 



" High is his perch, but humble is his home, 

 And well conceal'd, sometimes within the sound 

 Of heartsome millclack, where the spacious door 

 White dusted, tells him plenty reigns around ; 

 Close at the root of brier-bush that o'er hangs 

 The narrow stream, with shealings bedded white, 

 He fixes his abode and lives at will. 

 Oft near some single cottage he prefers 

 To rear his little home ; there, pert and spruce, 

 He shares the refuse of the good wife's churn, 

 Nor seldom does he neighbour the low roof 

 Where tiny elves are taught." 1 

 The Redbreast is a very early builder, and usually selects for its 

 nest a shallow cavity among grass or moss in a bank, or at the root of 

 a tree; sometimes in the hole of a tree, in a wood or secluded lane, fre- 

 quently far distant from its winter haunts about the cottage door or the 

 farm-yard. A singularly fanciful account is given by Turner, an 

 English naturalist, who wrote so long ago as the sixteenth century. 

 " The robinet," says he, " which hath a red breast both in summer and 

 in winter, nestleth as far as possible from towns and cities in the 

 thickest copses and orchards, after this manner. When she hath found 

 many oak leaves, she constructeth a nest, and when built, covereth it in 

 with arch work, leaving only one way for entrance, for which purpose 



1 Birds of Scotland, p. 29. 



