100 
SYLVIADA2. 
He would return every evening as regularly as the 
decline of day, and not only stayed with us the whole of 
that winter, roosting on one of the bell wires, but con¬ 
tinued to do so for some succeeding years, till, upon our 
being sent to school, our playfellow was forgotten. 
It is, however, singular that several years after this a 
Redbreast—it may have been the same one—used to 
spend its winter nights in my hither’s bed-room, when he 
was much interested by watching it and another, its 
companion, which would come at times to the window, 
to join it when liberated in the morning. 
When engaged in railway surveys during the winter I 
have known the Robin come without fear or harm, to beg 
a crumb from the dinners of our workmen, and eat it off 
their hands. 
The nest of the Robin is composed of moss, dried 
grass, and dead leaves, lined with hair, and sometimes a 
few feathers; its natural position is a hollow in the side 
of a woody bank, or of a country lane, where it is shel¬ 
tered by the overhanging brushwood; it is not unfre- 
quently found in the hole of an old ruin or garden wall; 
and may be met with in as many whimsical positions as 
the nest of the spotted flycatcher. 
Mr. Selby mentions having known several instances in 
which it occupied the inside of a watering-pot, and Mr. 
Blackwell describes one which was built in the side of a 
sawpit, where people were at work. 
Although I have stated that the Robins betake them¬ 
selves to the country to spend the joyous months of 
summer, many of them remain near us. Mr. J. H. Tuke 
informs me that they had no less than four nests of this 
species in their garden in York, during the last summer. 
They had placed flower-pots for the purpose in different 
parts of the garden, and had the pleasure of seeing four 
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