As my neighbour was housing a rick he observed that his dogs
devoured all the little red mice that they could catch, but rejected
the common mice: and that his cats ate the common mice, refusing
the red.
Red-breasts sing all through the spring, summer, and autumn. The
reason that they are called autumn songsters is, because in the two
first seasons their voices are drowned and lost in the general
chorus; in the latter their song becomes distinguishable. Many
songsters of the autumn seem to be the young cock red-breasts of
that year: notwithstanding the prejudices in their favour, they do
much mischief in gardens to the summer-fruits.*
(* They eat also the berries of the ivy, the honeysuckle, and the
euonymus europaeus, or spindle-tree.)
The titmouse, which early in February begins to make two quaint
notes, like the whetting of a saw, is the marsh titmouse: the great
titmouse sings with three cheerful joyous notes, and begins about
the same time.
Wrens sing all the winter through, frost excepted.
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