OUR ROBIN REDBREAST. 109 
interested in our robins, and a gentleman offered to 
keep them in beef for the rest of the journey. He 
would go out once a day, when the train stopped long 
enough, and buy some beef. Our pets came to be 
quite an attraction in the car, and everybody was 
anxious to do something for the little travellers. 
We took the birds to the dressing-room each day to 
clean the cage and to give them a bath. We washed 
them one at a time, in our hands, holding them under 
the gently flowing faucet. At first they objected, but 
they soon grew to like it. 
During the first year they never sang a note, for 
their unmusical squeak could certainly not be called 
singing. The second spring we gave them a large 
cage in the yard, that they might make the acquaint- 
ance of other birds. In a short time an old mocking- 
bird came and gave them music lessons. 
The teacher would twist his toes around the wires of 
the cage, in this way holding himself close to the birds. 
Then he would twitter softly, until the young birds 
had learned to respond and to twitter too. 
When at last the robins did have a song, it was a 
mixture of robin and mocking-bird notes. They did 
not speak pure robin all that year. 
After they were grown-up birds, the mocker who had 
taught them music took a great dislike to them. This 
was very strange, for he had been so fond of his little 
pupils, dropping berries down through the cage wires, 
and calling them all sorts of pet names in his own lan- 
