84 HOMING WITH THE BIRDS 



mat ion, while at the same time it had slowly 

 starved to death. 



Another instance of extreme suffering was on 

 the part of a robin I found in the orchard of our 

 farm. Driving down the lane to the highway one 

 evening at dusk, I noticed something unusual 

 dangling from the branch of an apple tree, and 

 heard pitiful robin calls of distress. I responded 

 immediately and found a young bird so fully 

 feathered that its condition seemed to indicate 

 that it should have been several days from the 

 nest, which gave no signs of having been occupied 

 more recently. Being unable to reach the nest 

 by means of the branch, which was too light to 

 bear my weight, I went to the house to bring a 

 ladder. As I approached the tree on my return, 

 I found an old robin clinging to the side of the 

 nest putting food into the mouth of the young one. 

 When I reached the nest I discovered that this 

 bird had a long, stout horsehair tightly looped 

 around one of its legs just above the knee joint, 

 both ends being firmly plastered in the mud of 

 the nest foundation. It had hung by this hair 

 for so long that the skin was cut to the muscle. 

 The wound was so old that it had ceased to bleed, 

 while the flesh had drawn back and was partially 

 healed all around the cut, exposing the muscle, 

 which was slowly being cut through by the strug- 

 gles of the bird. I could draw no other conclusion 

 than that this robin had hung there since it was 



