OUE PETS. 139 



tlieir children provided for ; and we always knew when 

 the eggs were hatched, by the constant and vehement de- 

 mands of the cock chaffinch at the open window or in the 

 garden, for a supply of food for them. The hen chaffinch 

 is quieter and less familiar, though she sometimes sits on 

 a branch and scolds for food ; but her mate is a reguLar 

 beggar, and I am sure, like all such, his morals became 

 corrupted, and he disliked the trouble of working for his 

 family, and so brought them up on spoon meat, instead of 

 hunting for flies and caterpillars for them ! The chaffinch 

 is rather a pugnacious bird in spring, and, like the robin, 

 he keeps his own heat, and drives off others who come to 

 be fed ; and both he and the blackbird bring their young 

 ones to be fed after they leave the nest, thus seeking, as it 

 were, to make the friendship hereditary. The young robins, 

 on the contrary, make their own friends ; and certainly few 

 birds are more attractive than a little speckled-breasted 

 robin, who comes half shyly towards you from among the 

 gooseberry bushes ; and, growing more bold by degrees, 

 follows you about, perching on the edge of the wheel- 

 barrow, and seeming as if he thus attached himself to you 

 more for the pleasure of yowv society and the su|)erin- 

 ttnding of your work, than from any desire to be fed ; but 

 woe betide, nevertheless, any luckless insect, however small, 

 that is turned up by the spade — robin is down upon it in 

 an instant, his bright keen ej^e detecting his prey where 

 you can see nothing. I have heard people ask where all 

 the robins go in summer, for they never see them but in 

 winter : they certainly get shyer in spring ; but w^e have 



