Chr ie 
WINTER AND THE ROBINS, AND HOW A PAIR 
MADE A CURIOUS MISTAKE 
WINTER is not nesting time. But our little 
feathered friends can make mistakes some- 
times. Such circumstances must have inspired 
Cowper when he wrote :— 
It chanced upon a winter’s day 
. . . The birds conceiving a design 
To forestall sweet St. Valentine, 
Assembled on affairs of love. 
But though the birds were thus in haste, 
The leaves came on not quite so fast; 
And Destiny, that sometimes bears 
An aspect stern on men’s affairs, 
Not altogether smiled on theirs. 
This is what happened to a pair of robins 
in the winter of 1907. I was told on 
January 4 of that year that a robin’s nest 
with four eggs could be seen in a secluded 
B.N.—IL. B 
