breeder, the nest being often completed by the end of February or early in March, but the eggs, usually six in number and of a pale reddish-buff colour, sometimes nearly white with red spots, are not, as a rule, laid till quite the end of March or beginning of April. As is customary in this family the incubation is carried on by the hen alone, while he roams about the vicinity, feeding her as opportunity offers, or sitting on some twig trilling forth his song. After the young are hatched he has but little time for singing, and has to work with a will to keep the six hungry youngsters satisfied, the hen also assisting him. When they leave the nest the young are clad in a uniformly mottled greyish-green plumage, which, however, is soon moulted, and they then become like their parents. [Illustration: ROBIN _Erithacus rubecula_ Adult (right). Young (left)] The first brood off their hands, the parents busy themselves with a second, and sometimes even with a third, and then towards the end of July they become restless, and both old and young are seen no more in their summer haunts. We shall not have long to wait however,—probably some casual wanderers will frequently be seen, here to-day and gone to-morrow, wandering about in an irresponsive manner as the spirit moves them—but as the leaves fall and the days shorten, these wanderings will cease, and we shall find a cheery robin at our windows day after day, a bright spot of vigorous life in the midst of the sleeping vegetation, till we lose him again in the following spring amid the bustle and rush of reawakening life. The sexes are practically alike and have the upper parts olive brown; frontal band, lore, chin, throat, and upper breast reddish orange, bordered on the throat and breast with bluish grey; flanks brown; rest of under parts white. Length 5·75 in.; wing 3 in. THE NIGHTINGALE Daulias luscinia (Linnæus)