American Bird- Visitors to Ireland at Home. 31 



The eggs of the Robin are four or five in number, and of a 

 very beautiful pure greenish-blue, unspotted, their average 

 size being about the same as Blackbirds' eggs. 



The Robin's food consists chiefly of insects and worms; 

 especially in the spring and summer months, when the young 

 are still in the nest, the numbers of grubs destroyed by these 

 birds is enormous, and the benefit to agriculture almost 

 incalculable. It is doubtful if a young Robin ever indulges 

 in anj^ vegetable diet. When in the nest, the birds seem 

 actually to require more than their own weight of food 

 daily to keep them in good health; a nestling Robin has 

 been known to eat as many earthworms in twelve hours as 

 laid end to end, would measure fourteen feet. But grubs, 

 caterpillars, grasshoppers, and beetles, probably form a greater 

 part of their diet than earthworms, as in the hot summer the 

 ground is mostly too hard and dry to obtain the latter. In 

 the autumn, berries and fruits form a considerable part of the 

 bird's food. 



A curious part of the Robin's life-history, only recently 

 noticed by naturalists, is its habit of forming large "roosts" 

 in the late summer and autumn. These "roosts" are often 

 frequented by thousands, or even tens of thousands of birds 

 which come from all the surrounding country to spend the 

 night together. The reason of this habit is not fully under- 

 stood yet, if it ever will be; but it seems to be formed, -at 

 a time when the females are busy with their second broods, 

 by the males and young of the first brood, which thus meet 

 every night in some convenient and safe thicket for mutual 

 protection. 



The song of the Robin consists of but few notes, but these 

 are strong, pure, and singularly buoyant and cheerful, and 

 are the most welcome to me of all the voices of the American 

 spring; the bird also utters a "cluck-cluck" as it flies 

 from the lawn to take refuge in the nearest tree; both in 

 flight and on the ground, the movements and attitudes of the 

 bird are noticeably like those of the Irish Blackbird. 



That the Robin not only looks a bold and powerful bird, 

 but can take good care of himself and nest, was proved by a 

 fight between one and a marauding Blue-jay, witnessed by a 

 friend of mine, in which the Jay was left a corpse m the fiela, 

 or rather tree of battle, and the skin of the vanquished after- 

 wards added to my owni collection. ^ 



