SONG BIRDS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



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. 



As the evergreen shrubs are seen in their great- 

 est beauty when other trees have lost their verdant 

 hue, so the Redbreast assumes a gayer dress, and 

 his song appears more sweet to us, when most other 

 birds are mute, and our summer visitors have fled. 

 His melody is more generally heard when the arbu- 

 tus, or strawberry-tree, is in all its beauty, exhibiting 

 at once flowers and fruit ; the blossoms of the pre- 

 sent, with the ripe fruit of the former year. Spenser 

 has illustrated the exuberance of this beautiful 

 shrub in the following lines : — 



There is continual spring and harvest there 

 Continual, both meeting at one time ; 

 For both the boughs do laughing blossoms bear, 

 And with fresh colours deck the wanton prime, 

 And eke at once the heavy trees they climb, 

 Which seem to labour under their fruits load : 

 The whiles the joyous birds make their pastime 

 Amongst the shady leaves, their sweet abode, 

 And their true loves without suspicion tell abroad. 



