96 ODD HOURS WITH NATURE 



proving just a trifle big or a trifle tough, and was 

 taking an unconscionable time to digest. Actually 

 they are not a bit sick, and if you dig up a few 

 spadefuls of earth for them they will demonstrate 

 on the spot that they have room and the appetite 

 for more. Probably the rotund, loose -feathered 

 pose is adopted for warmth, and feathers thus 

 disposed have undoubtedly the power, common to 

 blankets and fluffy fabrics in general, of retaining 

 in the form of warm air the heat emanating from 

 the body they invest. Be that as it may, these 

 are the two common poses of the robin. 



The love-making pose is a thing all by itself. 

 The other day I devoted an hour to the ongoings 

 of three robins, two, of which at least were affected 

 with the season madness. One of the three was 

 a hen, and still calm as calm could be. For eight 

 months out of the twelve robins are solitary birds, 

 disliking particularly the society of their own kind, 

 and this hen was still indisposed for company. 

 But wherever she liked to fly the other two flew 

 after her. She looked at them with what novelists 

 call mingled annoyance and surprise. They were 

 most troublesome, not to say rude, and she mani- 

 fested her sense of their unseemly conduct by 

 running a tilt at each on turn as it came too near, 

 and letting it have " one " on the ribs with her 

 beak. But though robins are pugnacious or 

 nothing, they retaliated with no violence. Their 

 one object, from time to time achieved, was to 

 get posted right in front of her, and there go 

 through a little pantomime. This consisted in 

 turning up the tail till it hung over the back at 



