 
None of our birds is so well-known and so universally beloved as the robin. He, together with the song sparrow and the bluebird, arrives at a time when we are weary of winter and yearning for spring. He seems to show so much eagerness to return to us that he receives a hearty welcome. He is the first bird that we knew in childhood, unless it be the English sparrow; our earliest books were filled with tales and poems concerning him. Most of us have a fund of anecdotes that we could relate. ROBIN A robin has distinct individuality. His is a many-sided nature. He is cheerful and optimistic, aggressive and fearless, pugnacious and ardent—like the brave Lochinvar, “so daring in love and so dauntless in war,”—yet withal tender, joyous, and lovable. He is a fighter at mating time, but a gentle husband. There are few bird-choruses as sweet as robins’ rain-song or even-song. I recall a flock of these happy birds singing from maple-tops in a little village nestled beside a brawling river, when patches of brown earth showed beneath melting snow, and heavy rain-clouds broke away to reveal a golden western sky. The robins sang with the joy that my own heart felt at the renewal of life on the earth. I once heard their even-song in an elm-shaded college-town of Massachusetts during a lovely Sunday evening in June, when church-bells rang and robins held a vesper service all their own. My sister and I walked beneath the great arched trees and found ourselves speaking in whispers, as was our habit in the cathedrals of the Old World. The robin’s tut-tut, or tut-tut-tut'-tut-tut-tut-tut,—his scolding note,—is very similar to the exclamation of reproof our grandfather used to administer to us for childish misdemeanors. It is amusing to see how robins use this form of remonstrance to humans. John Burroughs wrote that he was kept out of his own summer-house by a I recall an amusing experience with a robin family one summer. The second brood of hungry babies were clamoring for “More,” and following their overworked father about as I have seen human babies tease their mothers. He was decidedly “frayed” as to temper, but he chose to assume the entire parental responsibility. His faded, bedraggled spouse, perched disconsolately upon the roof of the chicken-house, flew down two or three times into the bosom of the family and endeavored to “do her bit”; but her testy husband drove her off each time with a sharp tut-tut, until in despair she remained upon the ridge-pole peeping forlornly. The father proceeded to pull up worms for his gaping brood in a manner so irritated and strenuous that I wondered whether he had had a “family jar,” or was only worn out with anxiety and overwork. It is a huge task to feed one baby robin alone, who can eat sixty-eight angleworms a day, Robins do good to the soil by dragging forth earthworms and preventing their too rapid increase. Mr. Forbush calls attention to the value of these birds in devouring “dormant cutworms and caterpillars even in February,” also quantities of the larvÆ of March flies and white grubs that injure grass. The robin is an enemy of caterpillars, especially those that live near the ground; his destruction of cutworms and white grubs alone entitles him to our gratitude. He does eat early cherries, and has been bitterly arraigned for so doing. When later cherries, apples, peaches, pears, and grapes are ripe, wild fruits and mulberries which he eats by preference, have also matured; so on the whole, he does little harm. A Maine robin that had an inordinate love for cherries and garden-raspberries was at first intimidated by a most lifelike, well-set-up scarecrow placed in the garden for his benefit. But he grew wiser as the days passed: he approached the fearful creature and received no harm. Familiarity finally bred contempt, for one day he was discovered perched upon the scarecrow’s shoulder eating a raspberry! Robins become very tame. I once had the pleasure of the companionship of a dear, gentle, little English robin—a bird very different in size and manner from his American cousin—who would come out of the shrubbery whenever I called him. He would approach within two or three feet of my chair, to snatch the soft crumbs that I placed on the ground to lure him. He rewarded me frequently with his delightful little bubbling song. An American robin during a March ice-storm learned To another Ohio woman came the joy of having a robin enter her room frequently. She had tempted him with crumbs inside a window-sill. One day he perched upon the sewing-machine where she was at work, and sang his sweet song to her, as the busy machine hummed its tune. A robin’s nest is an untidy affair, but it is something that we should miss were it not a part of our environment. Few birds’ eggs are more lovely in color than those of the familiar robins’-egg blue, nestled in their grass-lined cup of clay. Olive Thorne Miller wrote of a clever robin that wished to build her nest during an almost rainless spring. She could find no mud, so she waded about in her drinking-dish to wet her legs; she then hopped into the dust, and with her bill scraped the mud off her legs. I once saw a mother-robin sheltering her brood during a rainstorm of great violence. Her soft body and outspread wings were pelted by the rain, but she seemed quite oblivious to everything except to keep harm from her young. Her protecting attitude and the look in her bright eyes made as beautiful an expression of mother-love as I ever witnessed. |
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