200 American Birds 



than frightened. She held her dignity and looked at me 

 with an air that said, " This is my home : you are 

 intruding." 



Of the eight hundred species of North American 

 birds, the robin is the most widely known. No matter 

 how limited a boy or girl's knowledge is about birds, 

 he knows the robin when it arrives in the spring and begins 

 to hunt worms on the lawn. 



Perhaps no bird is so closely associated with our every- 

 day life as the robin. He takes his chances with the cats 

 about the dooryard. He is a rural life bird, but he doesn't 

 like the primitive forest. He can get better nest building 

 material and better food wherever man is, and he stays 

 near by some house. He likes a lawn in the springtime, 

 for it always holds a good supply of worms. Give a 

 robin plenty of lawn in the spring and a good cherry 

 orchard in the summer and he asks for nothing else, and 

 you can't get rid of him. And he makes a picture in 

 the field. How his ruddy breast shows against the green ! 

 He hops along for a few steps, and suddenly stands erect 

 and still, as if thinking. Then his head turns to one side 

 in a pert way as he examines the ground and listens. 

 Down into the earth goes his bill, and he sits back and 

 jerks a long worm from its hole. 



As the robin is widely known because of his distinctive 

 size, dress, and habits, so the thrush is known for his sing- 

 ing. " If we take the quality of melody as the test," says 

 John Burroughs, " the wood thrush, the hermit thrush, 

 and the veery thrush stand at the head of our list of 

 songsters." Every bird lover has his favorite songster, 

 and it is often difficult to say whether the song of one 



