tation identify such pronounced types as those of the chaffinch,
with its purple blotches, the song-thrush with its black spots on a blue
ground, or the nightingale, which resembles a miniature olive. Eggs, on
the other hand, like those of the house sparrow, redshank and some of
the smaller warblers, are so easily confused with those of allied
species that Lord Lilford's caution is by no means superfluous.
Ordinarily speaking, the robin's egg is white, with red spots at one
end, but I remember taking at Bexley, nearly thirty years ago, an
immaculate one of coffee colour. As the robin is a favourite
foster-parent with cuckoos, my first thought was that this might be an
unusually small egg of the parasitic bird, which was very plentiful
thereabouts. It so happened, however, that three days after I had
abstracted the first and only egg I took from that nest, there was a
second of the same type; and, much as I would have liked this also for
my collection, I left it in the nest so as to set all doubts at rest. My
moderation was rewarded, for no one else found the nest, and in due
course the coffee-coloured egg produced a robin like the rest.

The robin is anything but a gregarious bird. Its fighting temper
doubtless leads it to keep its own company, and we rarely see more than
one singing on the same bush, or seeking for food on the same lawn. Yet,
though it is with us all the year, it is known to perform migrations
within these islands, and possibly also overseas, chiefly connected with
commissariat difficulties, and it is probable that on such occasions
many robins may travel in company, though I have not been so fortunate
as to come across them in their pilgrimage. Equally interesting,
however, is the habit which the bird has in Devonshire of occasionally
going down to the rocks on the seashore, as I have often noticed in the
neighbourhood of Teignmouth and Torquay. What manner of food the
redbreast may find in such surroundings is a mystery, but there it
certainly spends some of its time, bobbing at the edge of the rock pools
in much the same fashion as the dipper on inland waters.

Young robins are turned adrift at an early age to look after themselves,
a result of the parent bird always rearing two families in the year, and
in many cases even three, so that they have not too much time to devote
to the upbringing of each. Another consequence of this prolific habit is
that the robin has to make its nest earlier than most