COCK-ROBIN 23 



And should any urchin, regardless of the warning rock- 

 staff, put her off her nest and rob an egg or two, she will 

 not desert her home, but return to his leavings with a 

 contented and philosophic mind, warming them into young 

 fledglings, whom Bob will feed with wire-worms. He is 

 busy then, in no mistake, carrying and giving the loveless 

 wire-worms to his brood, himself eating any worm or " sow " 

 (wood-louse) that he finds. Sometimes he finds a young 

 cuckoo in his nest instead of his progeny ; then he feeds 

 him as carefully as he would have done his own children. 

 And all summer Bob is breeding, for one family a year is 

 insufficient, two or three broods being regularly turned off. 



And when the autumn air is yellow with falling leaves, 

 Bob begins, perhaps, to regret his uxoriousness, for his 

 quickly growing, pert little sons are already as big as him- 

 self and lustier, and — oh ! that it should be written — ungrate- 

 ful ; for with the fall of the yellow corn before the dipping 

 harvesters the duels between father-robin and son-robin 

 begin, and all along the embrowning hedgerows you may 

 come across these fights, where fierce and unnatural war of 

 upstart children against careful parents is being waged, and 

 many an aged parent is left dead upon the battlefield, the 

 homing harvesters at nightfall muttering their funeral ser- 

 mons as they kick the dead bodies aside into the holls. 

 And many an old Broadsman whom I have closely ques- 

 tioned assures me he has never found a young bird dead 

 after these battles. One of these men, who in winter is a 

 professional gunner, assures me he can find a score of 

 dead birds any year he likes during the harvest season, all 

 old birds. Nor is this little fighter content with battling 

 against his own flesh and blood, but he must needs throw 

 the gauge to the strong-beaked house-sparrow, and at times 

 Bob worsts him. 



When the fields are white and the misty hedgerows hang 

 above the marshlands. Bob draws near to the fenman's cot- 

 tage, getting scraps at the pig trough, seeds from the ricks, 



