A SCHOOLROOM STUDY OF A ROBIN'S NEST 



By JESSIE REBECCA MANN 

 Assistant in Biology, Northern Illinois State Normal School, De Kalb, 111. 

 [Two robin nests on window sills — one in May and one in June — -were 

 under observation by classes in this institution last Spring. It is believed 

 that the most complete data on record were obtained. This article deals 

 with the pedagogical aspects of the study of the June brood. The record 

 of the May brood is being prepared by Miss Mann and the undersigned 

 and will probably appear soon in Bird-Lore. If all nature-study were so 

 real — so rich in content and in interest, as was this, the problem would 

 be well-nigh solved. — F.L.C.] 



Our campus at the Northern Illinois State Normal School with 

 its grove, stream, pond and meadow gives us most unusual facili- 

 ties for the field study of birds. It is owing partly to this fact and 

 partly to the intrinsic interest of the subject that the bird course 

 is perhaps the most popular one given in the science depart- 

 ment. Last spring we had an opportunity to study the home 

 life and nesting habits of one bird, the robin; to put more reality 

 into the laboratory work; to understand the relation between 

 structure and function so admirably exemplified in the birds' 

 body and to come into close sympathy with bird-life as never 

 before. 



It came about in this way. Late in April a pair of robins was 

 discovered building a nest on the sill of a second-story window of 

 the Normal building and the class had the pleasure of watching 

 the rearing of the brood. Complete all-day records were kept 

 for five days in which everything that happened in or about the 

 nest was carefully recorded. 



Just before the close of the term a second nest was discovered, 

 also on a window sill, but in another part of the building. The 

 young birds, three in number, were three days old when our sum- 

 mer term opened, June 22, 1908. 



At the first recitation the class was taken to see the nest and 

 young birds. The vine-framed window stood wide open and the 

 teacher gently lifed one of the nestlings from the nest so that it 

 might be better seen. As we stood there the mother came with 

 her bill full of wriggling earthworms which she dropped into the 

 gaping yellow mouths of the young in the nest. The interest of 

 the class was at once aroused in the operation and many ques- 



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