56 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



, 



when I caught twelve and selected the three brightest for pets, letting the 

 remainder fly. As usual, these birds readily become quite tame, taking worms, 

 insects, &c. from my fingers; indeed one of them did so on the third day 

 after its capture. It soon learned to know me so well that it would follow 

 me from one end of its flight-cage to the other. I used to sit down and 

 watch this bird and I made a note of the number of beats of the wing 

 which were required to take it from one end of its little aviary to the other ; 

 this I could only do accurately by ear, but the number hardly ever varied : 

 I then calculated that, flying in the same manner, the Robin would have to 

 flap its wings 9240 times to cover a mile. Two of these Robins died in the 

 spring, one after eight, and the other after nine months confinement ; the 

 third I gave away to a friend. 



In September, 1887, I again caged two Robins, the first of which became 

 perfectly tame in about a week and would come at my call to take mealworms 

 or earthworms from my fingers ; both died of a pulmonary complaint in the 

 spring of 1889, I having turned them into an unheated aviary : it thus 

 became clear that after eighteen months of comparative warmth, the Robin is 

 unfit to cope with the severity of an English winter. 



Since then I have had several of these charming little songsters, but I 

 do not think I shall ever keep another ; I always feel that a bird which will 

 of its own free will enter your house and remain for weeks (if you permit 

 it) a willing captive, should not be " cribbed, cabined or confined." One 

 autumn, after allowing a Robin to take possession of a greenhouse for a 

 week, I was finally obliged to drive him out ; on account, not only of the 

 disfigurement of my plants, but of his propensity to dig for worms in the 

 flower-pots. 



