Always in the wake of the robins is the sharp-shinned hawk and niany an- 

 other winged enemy, for their migrations are followed by faithful foes who 

 secrete themselves in the shadows. We dejjrived one of the desperadoes of his 

 dinner l)eforc he had so much as tasted it. also of his pleasure in obtaining another, 

 for we brought him down in the very act, and rescmd his victim only by prying 

 apart the reluctantly dying claws. 



I'lUt whatever may be said of hawks and such other hungry beings who lay 

 no claim to a vegetable diet, their so-called cruelty should be overlooked, since it 

 is impossible to draw the lines without affecting the robin himself. For see with 

 what excusable greed he snatches at winged beings which happen to light for a 

 rest in their flight, or draws the protesting earth-worm from its sunless corridors. 

 It is a law of nature, and grace must provide absolution. So must also the bird- 

 lover, supposing in his charitable heart that worms and flics delight in being made 

 over into new and better loved individuals. 



Would the bird-lover actually convert this redbreast from the error of his 

 victual ways, he may do so by substituting cooked or raw food from his own table. 

 The robin is an apt student of civilization, and adopts the ways of its reformers 

 with relish. As to tiic statement that robins require a diet of worms to insure life 

 and growth, we can say that we have raised a whole family on bread and milk 

 alone with perfect success. True, we allowed them a bit of watermelon in melon 

 season, but they used it more as a newfangled bath than as a food, actually rolling 

 in it. and pasting their feathers together with the sticky juice. The farmer's 

 orciiard is the robin's own patch of ground, and he revels in its varied bounties. 

 A pair of them know at a glance the very crotch in the apple-tree which grew 

 three prongs on purpose for their nest. The extreme center, scooped to a thimble's 

 capacity, suggests the initial post-hole for a proper foundation. The said post 

 may be placed directly across it, but that does not change the idea. Above is the 

 parting of the boughs, across whose inverted arches sticks alternate, and so on up. 

 .And atop of straws and leaves and sticks is the "loving cup" of clay, with its soft 

 lining of vegetable fiber and grasses. W'hat care the robins that little cover roof? 

 them and their young? Are they not water birds by nature, and wind birds as 

 well? (Our pet sat for hours at a time in hot weather emersed to his ears in the 

 bath, and even sang low notes while he soaked.) Birds of spring freshets and 

 June winds, they dote on the weather, and bring off their young ones as success- 

 fully as Hieir neighbors. Wliat if a nest be blown down now and then? The 

 school-bo}'. in passing, puts it back in its place and sees that every birdling goes 

 with it ; while the old birds above him. shedding water like a goose, thank him 

 for his pains. 



The orchardist who plants a mulberry-tree in his apple rows, though he him- 

 self scorns the insipid sweetness of the fruit, ranks with any philanthropist in 

 that he foresees the needs of a little soul which loves the society of man more 

 than anything else in the world. 



By the planting of the mulberry-tree he plants a thought in the breast of his 

 little son. *T don't like mulberries, father. What makes you set out a mulberry- 

 tree in an apple orchard?" 



707 



