REDBRPEAST. 15 
It is a constant resident throughout the year in all the 
more temperate and warmer parts of Hurope—Saxony, Spain, 
Italy, and Holland; visiting Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, 
in the summer. In the northern parts of Africa, it is also 
known. In Asia, H. EH. Strickland, Esq. has seen it in Asia 
Minor; and Keith Abbot, Esq. in Persia. 
With us it is universally distributed in the three kingdoms; 
and even in the depth of the most lonely wood you are 
sometimes almost startled by the suddenness with which an 
unexpected Robin will make his appearance on some neigh- 
bouring branch. In Shetland it occasionally occurs, and in 
Orkney, though not very numerous, it 1s seen throughout 
the year; and also even in the bare islands of the outer 
Hebrides. 
The Redbreast remains with us throughout the year, unless 
indeed it be a contradiction of this statement, that some are 
supposed to migrate hither from more northern parts in the 
winter: they are believed to perform their migrations singly. 
In summer they for the most part, but by no means universally, 
remove from that more close propinquity to human habitations 
which in winter they had sought, to a greater distance, where 
retirement is to be better gained. Numbers have been known 
to alight on a vessel in the Mediterranean, and apparently 
much fatigued with their journey to and from its opposite 
shores. The same Robin generally frequents the same haunt, 
and it is probably his jealousy of any interference with his 
prerogative, that makes him so ready to attack any trespasser, 
though of his own kith and kindred, that ventures within 
the bounds of his domain—he desires to be like Robinson 
Crusoe, ‘Monarch of all he surveys.’ 
In severe weather many fall victims to the exterminating 
effects of hunger and cold. ‘The female bird is very attentive 
to the charge of her nest, and has often been known to allow 
herself to be taken in the hand without deserting it. One 
has been taken on the nest and placed with it in a cage, 
where she continued to sit; and another, though taken off 
the nest six times in a single day, and even detained in a 
cage for a few minutes, returned to her charge when set at 
liberty, and successfully hatched her eggs. 
As one proof, ‘unum e multis,’ of the pugnacious disposition 
of the Robin, for which he is indeed noted, Mr. George B. 
Clarke has sent me the following anecdote, since recorded in 
‘The Naturalist,’ volume i, page 45:—‘I thought I would try 
