TFNTH ORDINARY MEETING. 9] 
bery, or pipes its evening song from the roof of some lofty building, 
is one of the most welcome sounds in Spring. Indeed I know of 
none among all our feathered visitors so worthy of being cherished 
and protected. It comes about our lawns and dwellings, and if only 
unmolested will build its nest and lay its eggs and hatch its young 
under the very eyes of the household. Its cheerful notes are the 
first we hear on waking, for the Robin is abroad at early dawn, 
and through the live long day it is going and coming in quest of 
food for itself or its young, stopping every now and again for a 
short snatch of cheery song, and then, as the sun goes down, 
perched on some tree, or it may be high up on the gable of some 
lofty building, it will pour forth its sweet notes continuously— 
sometimes for half an hour or more; the last of all the grove tu 
relapse into silence. The quantities of grubs, caterpillars, cutworms, 
crickets and grasshoppers which are captured and devoured by 
the Robin and other thrushes is something marvellous ; and as the 
Robin not unfrequently raises three broods in the year, his species 
must destroy more of these insects than almost all other birds put 
together. Nothwithstanding all this because the Robin occasionally 
treats itself to a few strawberries or cherries or grapes by way of 
desert, it has been proscribed in some places by the fruit growers, 
who have had influence enough to persuade our local legislature to 
take it out of the list of insectivorous birds protected by law, and 
allow, in the words of the act, “Any person during the fruit season 
to shoot and destroy the Birds known as the Robin and the Cherry 
Bird.” It is scarcely fair to the Robin to put it in such company, 
though even the Cherry Bird, with all its fondness for fruit, assists 
in ridding our fruit trees of a host of insect enemies which infest 
them. In the case of the Robin, however, I have repeatedly, again 
and again, watched it while feeding its young—earth-worms, grubs, 
vine-wornms, caterpillars and other insect food were being brought all 
day long, and on these the young birds were fed exclusively, and 
when it is borne in mind that the Robin, as I have already stated, 
not unfrequently raises three broods in the year, their services in 
the destruction of insect pests must more than pay three times over 
for all the fruit they devour. 
Quickly following upon the arrival of the Robins comes the Blue 
Bird (Sialia Salis). Not so bold and fearless as the Robin, it 
does not come about our dwellings and grounds in quite the same 
