But no treason of the robin! More than any other bird it has endeared itself to our race, and our earliest literature bears witness to the national affection for "the charitable ruddock." Somehow or another, the pretty fancy has attached itself to the bird, that it "covers the bodies of unburied men," and long before Shakespeare utilised it to beautify a passage it had passed into the proverbs of the country. But even those who do not remember the charming legend with which the story of "The Babes in the Wood" familiarises every English nursery, love the robin for its beautiful confidence in man and woman, and for its brave-hearted song. While the trees are still bare in spring, and before the thrushes and blackbirds have begun to try their voices, the robin chants his cheery song, so full of bright faith and gladsome hope that the hearer cannot but take fresh heart on hearing him sing of better times. In summer, when "varied music burthens every bough," the voice of the little preacher of the wood is lost for a while, but by-and-by, when the songsters all have gone southward with the sunshine, and the chill rain drips from empty boughs upon the russet drifts of autumn leaves, the robin mounts the vacant choir, and out of the fulness of his own brave little heart utters his sweet brief canticle, "thanking God" so it seems "for a life so fair," and bidding all the sad who listen to him to renew their hopes and be light-hearted, to continue in their joy. And so to December and the end of the year, which the robin-redbreast always sings out with a happy Christmas carol. INDEX Among the Osiers, boyish sport, 202-5 Artifices of birds, 63 Birds: of the seasons, 13, 14 calendar of, 47 of the months, 54 little noticed, 101 of the sea, 158 flight of coloured, 162 in the poets (_see_ POETS) Bird-pests, 104, 105 Bird-voices, expressiveness of, 113 song of caged birds, 33, 34 Bittern, its folk-names, 48 Black-backed gull (_see_ GULL) Blackbird, 30 curious folk-belief about, 31 what becomes of its surplus numbers, 31 its nest, 32 its "piping," 33, 34-37 Blackcap, 101 its song mistaken for the nightingale's, 102 its eggs and nest, 117, 118 "Blasquet chickens," 177 Boyish sport among the osiers, 202-205 British Museum, curious notions as to what it wants, 201, 202 Caged Birds Singing, 33, 34 Calendar of birds, 47 Cat concerts, 35 Colour in flights of birds, 162 Coot, 50 Corn-crake, 113 its cry, 114, 117 Cuckoo, 99 its foster-parents, 100 food and song, 101 Curlew, folk-lore of, 49 Cushat (_see_ WOOD-PIGEON) Dabchicks, 205 "Davy Jones's locker," 173, 174 Dotterel, 64 its note, 67 Eagle, 71, 72 in poetry, 153 its flight, 154 (_see_ ERNE) Egg-gathering at Flamborough, 167 Eider-duck, 182 Erne, 155 its haunts, 156 its young, 157, 158 its raids on young birds, 165 raids on puffins and rabbits, 170 and black-backed gull, 183 and skua, 184 Evening sounds, 67, 114, 117