t 



CHAPTER OF VARIETIES. 321 



which they are built, I, and indeed most naturalists, know to be a fact. 

 In the neighbourhood of London, for instance, where many birds can- 

 not procure in sufficient quantities particular substances which they may 

 require for this purpose, they are obliged to use other materials. In 

 truth, it would appear that the nidifi cation of birds is, like their 

 melody, subject to provincial differences. But the differences ob- 

 servable in the materials of which the redbreast's nest is formed, seem 

 to me not to depend so much upon the neighbourhood, as upon the 

 situation in which it is built, as will presently appear. The subject of 

 oak-leaves being employed in the nest of this species, has, in my humble 

 opinion, been as well supported by some, as it has been positively denied 

 by others. Dr. Mason Good, in his " Book of Nature," gave his opi- 

 nion in the affirmative ; and you have, in one of your small volumes, 

 the " Architecture of Birds," introduced his statement, but have 

 appended to it the following dissentaneous observation : " So far, how- 

 ever, from preferring oak-leaves, we are bold to say that these are 

 seldom, if ever, used in the formation of the redbreast's nest, which is 

 always neatly made of moss and grass, and lined with hair, and some- 

 times (not always) with feathers intertwined." Feathers, I do not 

 recollect ever having observed in its nest, but I can confidently state 

 that I have found oak-leaves therein; and from my observation I am 

 inclined to believe that these are only used in such nests as are built 

 beneath the surface of the ground, down by the side of ditches, and not 

 in such nests as are built in banks above the earth's surface. During 

 last spring I found, in the ivy-covered and raised banks of a road, not 

 far from Shooter's Hill, three nests of the redbreast, in neither of which 

 was an oak-leaf ; but I once took a redbreast's nest from out of the lower 

 part of the bank of a ditch opposite the Tiger's Head at Lee, which 

 had one solitary oak-leaf in it, and I could mention other instances ; 

 but in the following account copied from my field-diary for April, 1831, 

 it will be seen that I once met with an instance in which the 

 only foundation upon which a redbreast's eggs were deposited was 

 oak-leaves. In the hollow stump of a tree, situated low down 

 by a streamlet' s bank, near the Harrow Road, I found the eggs 

 of a redbreast, without a vestige of nest to contain them, unless a few 

 damp decayed oak-leaves scattered within could be called such, and 

 only sheltered by some over-hanging ivy. This was indeed a very 

 unusual and singular occurrence ; but I must confess that I had some 

 reason to suspect that it was owing to some accidental causes. I sus- 

 pected this the more, as I had never heard or seen any other robin near 



