t 



THE ALBINO ROBIN. 35 



pleasing to us, perchance, we should sa}' with J. C. Van 

 Dyke — " The fault is not in the subject. It is not vulgar 

 or ugl)'. The trouble is that we perhaps hav^e not the 

 proper angle of vision. If we understood all, we should 

 admire all." 



It is supposed that under this protective covering of 

 froth the insect undergoes its various changes during the 

 period of growth. A few hours after the insects had hid- 

 den themselves from my view, the froth seemed to partial- 

 ly dry and shrink away from one of them, and he was 

 caught in the act of slipping off the old, useless coat for a 

 new one with pale brown, overlapping wings large enough 

 to clothe his bod}-. 



IvO, and behold ! here was one of the little frog-hoppers. 

 His life history- seemed to be in no wise connected with 

 frogs, but the contour of head, flat, toad-like shape and 

 spr}' leaps might offer the suggestion of the name. 



The Albino Robin. 



In the summer of 1900 some friends of mine came to me with a 

 story of a strange white bird that had been seen several times 

 among the trees of a small grove in southern Ohio, the state in 

 which my home county is, writes Henry Holcomb Bennett, in SL 

 Nicholas. Finally another friend told me that he had seen a pair 

 of robins feeding it, and, between us, we agreed that it must be a 

 white robin — an albino. 



An albino among men is a person whose skin and hair are unnat- 

 urally white. Among birds and animals an albino is one which is 

 white, differing from others of its species, A bird or animal the 

 normal color of which is white, or which changes to white feathers 

 or fur for winter, is not an albino. The perfect albino has pink 

 eyes, and no color about it. The white robin I saw was a perfect 

 albino. 



The rest of the brood, of which the albino was one, had scattered 

 and were looking out for themselves ; but the parent birds were 

 still feeding their white fledgling. The other birds in the grove 



