BIRDS IN THE CALENDAR 
is another fearless neighbour, but its freedom 
from persecution, of late somewhat threatened 
by Sparrow Clubs, is due less to affection 
than to the futility of making any impression 
on such hordes as infest our streets. 
No act of the robin's more forcibly illus- 
trates its trust in man than the manner in 
which, at a season when all animals are 
abnormally shy and suspicious, it makes its 
nest not only near our dwellings, but actually 
in many cases under the same roof as our- 
selves. Letterboxes, flowerpots, old boots, 
and bookshelves have all done duty, and I 
even remember a pair of robins, many years 
ago in Kent, bringing up two broods in an 
old rat trap which, fortunately too rusty to 
act, was still set and baited with a withered 
piece of bacon. Pages might be filled with 
the mere enumeration of curious and eccen- 
tric nesting sites chosen by this fearless bird, 
but a single proof of its indifference to the 
presence of man during the time of incuba- 
tion may be cited from the MS. notebooks 
of the second Earl of Malmesbury, which I 
have read in the library at Heron Court. 
It seems that, while the east wing of that 
140 
