Thomson, in his Winter, thus mentions the familiarity of this bird:

"One alone,

The redbreast sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of th' embroyling sky,
In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves,
His shiv'ring mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit."

Mr. Park has inserted the following note in his copy of Bourne and Brand's Popular Antiquities, p. 92: "There is also a popular belief in many country places that it is unlucky either to kill or keep robins. This is alluded to in the following lines of a modern poet, which occur in an ode to the Robin:

'For ever from his threshold fly,

Who, void of honour, once shall try,
With base inhospitable breast,

To bar the freedom of his guest;

O rather seek the peasant's shed,
For he will give thee wasted bread,

And fear some new calamity,

Should any there spread snares for thee.'

J. H. Pott's Poems, 8vo. 1780, p. 27.”

["Thus I would waste, thus end my careless days,
And robin redbrests, whom men praise
For pious birds, should, when I die,
Make both my monument and elegy.

Cowley's Sylva, 1681, p. 51.]

SWALLOWS, MARTINS, WRENS, LADY-BUGS, SPARROWS, AND TITMOUSE.

It is held extremely unlucky, says Grose, to kill a cricket, a lady-bug, a swallow, martin, robin redbreast, or wren: perhaps from the idea of its being a breach of hospitality, all these birds and insects alike taking refuge in houses. There is a particular distich, he adds, in favour of the robin and

A note in Mr. Park's copy of Bourne and Brand, p. 92, says: "When a boy, I remember it was said, in consonance with the above superstition, that—

"Tom Tit and Jenny Wren

Were God Almighty's cock and hen:

and therefore to be held sacred."

Persons killing any of the above-mentioned birds or insects, or destroying their nests will infallibly, within the course of the year, break a bone, or meet with some other dreadful misfortune. On the contrary, it is deemed lucky to have martins or swallows build their nests in the eaves of a house, or in the chimneys. In Six Pastorals, &c., by George Smith, Landscape Painter, at Chichester, in Sussex, 4to. Lond. 1770, p. 30, the following occurs:

"I found a robin's nest within our shed,

And in the barn a wren has young ones bred.
I never take away their nest, nor try
To catch the old ones, lest a friend should die.
Dick took a wren's nest from his cottage side,

And ere a twelvemonth past his mother dy'd!"

Its being accounted unlucky to destroy swallows is probably a pagan relic. We read in Ælian that these birds were sacred to the penates, or household gods of the ancients, and therefore were preserved. They were honoured anciently as the nuncios of the spring. The Rhodians are said to have had a solemn anniversary song to welcome in the swallow. Anacreon's ode to that bird is well known.

Willsford, in his Nature's Secrets, p. 134, says: "Swallows flying low, and touching the water often with their wings, presage rain."

Sparrows," he adds, "in the morning early, chirping, and making more noise than ordinary they use to do, foretells rain or wind; the tit-mouse, cold, if crying pincher." "Birds in general that do frequent trees and bushes, if they do fly often out, and make quick returns, expect some bad weather to follow soon after."

Alexander Ross, in his appendix to the Arcana Microscomi, p. 219, informs us that "in this land, of late years, our present miseries and unnatural wars have been forewarned by armies of swallows, martins, and other birds, fighting against one another."

Gaule, in his Mag-astromancers Posed and Puzzel'd, p. 181, takes notice, among other vain observations and superstitious ominations thereupon, "the swallows falling down the chimney."

In Lloyd's Stratagems of Jerusalem, 1602, p. 285, it is repeated that the swallow is a classical bird of omen. "By swallows lighting upon Pirrhus' tents, and lighting upon the mast of Mar. Antonius' ship, sayling after Cleopatra to Egipt, the soothsayers did prognosticate that Pirrhus should be slaine at Argos in Greece, and Mar. Antonius in Egipt." "Swallowes," he adds, "followed King Cyrus going with his army from Persia to Scythia, as ravens followed Alexander the Great at returning from India and going to Babilon; but as the Magi tolde the Persians that Cyrus should die in Scythia, so the Chaldean astrologers told the Macedonians that Alexander the Great, their king, should die in Babilon, without any further warrant but by the above swallowes and ravens."

Colonel Vallancey, in the 13th number of his Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, p. 97, speaking of the wren, the augur's favorite bird, says that "the Druids represented this as the king of all birds. The superstitious respect shown to this little bird gave offence to our first Christian missionaries, and, by their commands, he is still hunted and killed by the peasants on Christmas Day, and on the following (St. Stephen's Day) he is carried about hung by the leg in the centre of two hoops crossing each other at right angles, and a procession made in every village, of men, women, and children, singing an Irish catch, importing him to be the king of all birds. Hence the name of this bird in all the European languagesGreek, Tpóxidos, Baotlevs, Trochilus, Basileus; Rex Avium; Senator; Latin, Regulus; French, Roytelet, Bérichot, but why this nation call him Boeuf-de-Dieu I cannot conjecture; Welsh, Bren, King; Teutonic, Koning Vogel, King Bird; Dutch, Konije, little King."

Berchot is rendered in Cotgrave's Dictionary of old French, "the little wrenne, our ladies henne." In the livre vii. de la Nature des Oyseaux, par P. Belon, fol. Par. 1555, p. 342, we read: "Due roytelet. Les Grecs l'ont anciennement nommé Trochylos, Presuis, ou Basileus, et les Latins Trochylus, Senator, Regulus. Il est diversement nommé en François; car

les uns dient le Roy Bertauld, les autres un Bérichot, les autres un Boeuf-de-Dieu. Aristote dit que, pour ce qu'il est nommé sénateur et roy, il a combat contre l'aigle. Le roytelet, de si petite stature, fait nuisance à l'aigle, qui maistrise touts autres oyseaux.

وو

[On this subject the following occurs in the Literary Gazette, in an account of a meeting of the British Archæological Association :- "Reference was made to a French dictionary of the 16th century, as giving 'roitelet' (little king), 'roy des oiseaux' (king of the birds), and Roy Bertrand' for this bird. Now, roitelet is still the common, indeed the only familiar, French name for the wren: and the notion of his being a king runs through his appellations in many other languages beside. One's first impression, on learning this from a search through several dictionaries is, that the royal title must have been originally meant for the golden-crested wren, to which the names of Regulus' (Sylvia Regulus, Regulus cristatus) and 'roitelet' are now generally confined by naturalists, and have arisen from his crest, though several other larger and more important birds can boast a similar head-gear. The Greeks called both the wren and some kind of crested serpent (the cobra de capelho?) Caoxiakos (little king); while the Spaniards term the former reyezuelo, and the latter reyecillo, both diminutives of rey (king). The Latin regulus (the same) seems till recent times to have included all kinds of wrens; and the following names from other tongues seem as generally applied : Italian reatino (little king); Swedish kungs-fogel (king's-fowl); Danish, fugle-konge (towl-king). Moroever, some of the kingly names given to the wren apply better to the Troglodytes, or common wren, than to the Regulus or golden-crest; such are the German zaun-könig (hedgeking), the Italian re di siepe, di macchia (king of the hedge, bush), the former being notoriously fond of sticking to his hedge, while the latter often sings on the top of a tree; the Dutch winter-koninkje (little winter-king) is applicable to both equally, if derived, as seems likely, from their singing in the winter. How the poor little wren, the most diminutive of birds,' either achieved this greatness, or came to have it thrust upon him, still remains to be explained; the superstition, like so many still kept up in Christian countries, probably dates from heathen times. Another Danish name for

the common wren, Elle-konge (the alder-king), (German, Erlkönig), and that for the wag-tail (motacilla alba, a kindred bird), Elle-kongens datter (the alder-king's daughter), give another glimpse of mythological allusion. The Swedes, I may add, also call the willow-wren (motacilla trochilus) sparfkung; the Danes spurre-konge (sparrow-king). With regard to the hunting of the wren mentioned at the meeting in question as still kept up in Ireland, the Isle of Man, and France, it may be added, that in Surrey, and probably elsewhere in England, he is to this day hunted by boys in the autumn and winter, but merely 'for amusement and cruelty,' as my informant worded it, so that there the practice has not even the excuse of superstition; and the poor little 'king of birds' dies unwept, unhonored, and unsung.' It is curious that there should exist a very general contrary superstition, embodied in well-known nursery-lines, against killing a wren. Can this be a relic of the olden pagan notion of his kingly inviolability yet struggling with the Christian (?) command for his persecution at Christmas? In the child's distich, however, the wren is female, which it often is in provincial speech, Jenny or Kitty Wren; while the redbreast is as usual male, Robin. Mr. Halliwell gives the English version of the Hunting of the Wren in his Nursery Rhymes (2d ed. 1843), at page 180; and the Isle of Man Hunting of the Wran at page 249."]

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I should suppose the name of "Troglodytes, c'est-à-dire entrants es cavernes," from the nature of this bird's nest, which Belon thus describes: "La structure du nid de ce roytelet, tel qu'il le fait communément, à la couverture de chaume, qui dedens quelque pertuis de muraille, est composé en forme ovale, couvert dessus et dessous, n'y laissant qu'un seul moult petit pertuis, par lequel il y peult entrer."

Pliny says: "Dissident-Aquila et Trochilus, si credimus, quoniam rex appellatur avium," edit. Harduin. i. 582, 27. He further tells us what a singular office the wren performs in Egypt to the crocodile: "Hunc (i. e. crocodilum) saturum cibo piscium, et semper esculento ore, in litore somno datum, parva avis, quæ Trochilos ibi vocantur, rex avium in Italia, invitat ad hiandum pabuli sui gratia, os primum ejus assultim repurgans, mox dentes, et intus fauces quoque ad hanc scabendi dulcedinem quam maxime hiantes."