14 
REDBREAST. 
ROBIN. ROBIN REDBREAST. RUDDOCK. ROBINET. 
Sylvia rubecula, PENNANT. FLEMENG. 
Motacilla rubecula, MonraGuU. B®WICK. 
Errythaca rubecula, SELBY. GOULD. 
Sylvia.  Sylva—A wood. Rubseuia.  Ruber—Red—ruddy. - 
THE thoughts of our earliest years are those, each one of 
which, ‘zre perennius,’ abides with us through life, while those 
of later years pass away, oftentimes like a shadow without 
recall, Who then is there in whose oldest memory the 
levendary tale of the ‘Babes in the Wood’ does not for ever — 
dwell; and who is there in remembrance of it that with the 
Robin’s so-called faults will not ‘love him still?’ Faults he 
certainly has, or at least dispositions which would be sueh 
in us, but he fulfils to the letter the mission of his nature, 
and that is what ‘no man living’ can say of himself. 
An inhabitant of the wildest wood and the gayest garden, 
the most frequented road, and the most retired lane, the 
hedge of the pasture field, and the neighbourhood of every 
country-house, the Robin is an acquaintance of both old and 
young, and to each and every one he seems like an old friend. 
As you walk along the hedgerow side at almost any season 
of the year, it may be, ‘nescio quid meditans nugarum,’ your 
wandering thought is for the moment arrested by the sight 
of a Redbreast perched on one of the topmost sprays, or 
by the sound of the pretty note that its owner warbles — 
before you: you cannot help but stop a moment, and speak 
a word to the well-known bird, as if to an old acquaintance; 
and you almost fancy from his winsome attitude, the attention 
he seems to pay, and the quietness with which he remains, 
that he understands, if not your language, yet the purport 
of it, and is aware that you are a friend wke will not hurt 
or harm him. 
