162 
SYLVIAM. 
within two or three feet of his station. A pair of redbreasts that 
were assiduously watched during their nidification in the conser- 
vatory attached to the town- house of an acquaintance, were one 
morning found in great consternation ? in consequence of their 
nest having been taken possession of by a bat, which they event- 
ually compelled to change its quarters. The number of eggs is 
not uncommonly five ; rarely more. 
Tour rather singular instances of the redbreast building within 
doors near Belfast in the summer of 1833 here follow. In all of 
them, shrubberies and plantations were quite near to the chosen 
sites. The first two, communicated by a relative, occurred at 
Wolf -hill. He observes: — “The two nests of a robin in the 
carpenter's loft are placed on the corner of the wall supporting 
the roof ; the foundation that serves for both nests, is a quantity 
of large wood-shavings, of which the sides of the nests are likewise 
formed, together with green moss, beech leaves, wool, tufts of cow- 
hair, &c., but they are lined with horse-hair only. The mass of mate- 
rials of which these two nests are made, is about a foot and a half in 
length, eight inches in breadth, and five inches in thickness. In wet 
days the male bird kept much within the loft, and sang there. The 
carpenter tells me that only one of them collected the leaves and 
shavings : this individual was known from its wanting the tail ; 
it made very free with his pot of grease, and picked from it while in 
his hand : a brood was reared in one of these nests, hut two eggs 
laid in the other were not incubated. On another occasion the 
nest was built in the joist-hole of a wall, in course of erection, the 
completion of which made the removal of the nest unavoidable, and 
it was placed in an adjoining aperture of the same kind. The parent 
bird after looking for some time about the spot where the nest 
had been, rejoined her young, one of which was killed by falling 
out of its domicile in the course of removal ; and here she did 
not long remain undisturbed, as in the breaking out of a door 
within a foot of the nest, the mortar and stones fell perilously near 
her, but she nevertheless did not desert her young." 
At TortWilliam, the seat of a relative, the following circumstance 
occurred. In a pantry, the window of which was kept open during 
