THE AMERICAN ROBIN 



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. 



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 Lochin- 

 var, "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 be- 

 neath 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 col- 

 lege-town of Massachusetts during a lovely Sunday eve- 

 ning in June, when church-bells rang and robins held a 

 vesper service all their own. My sister and I walked be- 

 neath 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 re- 

 proof our grandfather used to administer to us for child- 

 ish 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 



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