SPs! REDBREAST. 
window-curtain of a bed-room at Roydon Hall; and another 
behind a figure on the top of a small monument in Thorpe 
Church, the old ones entering through a broken pane of glass ina 
window, and feeding their young during Divine service. A 
pair of Robins quartered themselves with their nest in a 
bed-room in a gentleman’s house; and another in a skull, 
dug up with a number of others, near the old wall of Clonmel, 
supposed to have lain buried there since the time when the 
town was beseiged by Oliver Cromwell, who doubtless ‘made 
a breach in the battlement,’ as in the celebrated castle of 
Blarney, im the adjoining county. Whether Cavalier or 
Roundhead had owned the skull, it would puzzle Old Mortality 
himself, or any other antiquary to decide—‘Pulvis et umbra 
sumus.’ 
Mr. Frank Clifford, of Elvedon Rectory, near Thetford, 
mentions one which began to build on the top of a book-case 
in a study. Being disturbed from thence, the next day she 
laid an egg on the carpet in the drawing-room, and began 
another nest in a bed-room, on the top of the bed. The 
housemaid turned it out several times, but as soon as her 
back was turned, Robinetta resumed her work, so that at last 
the room window was shut to keep her out. She then laid 
another egg in the drawing-room, and then attempted to 
establish her quarters in a store-room, but here too her room 
seems to have been desired rather than her company, so that 
she was banished thencefrom also. For several days she still 
continued hovering about her favourite haunts, but never 
again attempted to enter the house. 
Another singular circumstance occurred to the same family _ 
the same year.—They had a small box nailed to a gate-post 
by the road side for the postman to drop their letters into 
as he passed, and to hold others intended for him to take. 
The aperture in the lid was only large enough to admit a 
newspaper, but through this a Robin used to pass, and to 
convey into the box materials for a nest, which was duly 
finished and a number of eggs laid. A flower-pot in a garden 
is a by no means unfrequent receptacle. In 1851 a nest 
was built in a watering-can hung up against the wall of a 
house in Union Terrace, York, and six eggs were laid in it. 
Gentle reader, if indeed you be of gentle blood, and will 
read the following touching lines of the poet ‘Thompson, 
descriptive of the return of a bereaved parent bird to her 
