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acquired, and no doubt was entirely a matter of early education 

 and experience, except in so far as their keen faculties of observa- 

 tion were transmitted to them by their parents. The young 

 robins, when they first left the nest, were nearly helpless so far 

 as finding food was concerned, and it was some weeks before 

 they had learned to find grubs with certainty. At first they 

 were fed almost entirely by the parents; later, they learned to 

 pick up objects from the ground and to pursue crawling insects; 

 but they did not acquire, during their first summer, the skill 

 evinced by their parents in digging out grubs. An adult bird, 

 when once it began to dig, seldom missed the worm or grub. 

 The young birds frequently failed to secure their prey, and were 

 fed more or less by the old birds for some weeks after leaving 

 the nest. 



The first season (1901) we set out a few rows of strawberry 

 plants of different varieties. Perhaps it is needless to add that 

 the robins got nearly all the fruit. This created, as it usually 

 does, a rather unreasonable prejudice against the birds. In this 

 the whole family shared; but, had the robins been killed then, 

 there is little doubt that our strawberry beds would have been 

 ruined in 1902. A close watch was kept on the robins in the 

 strawberry bed in 1901, and they were seen to devour, on the 

 average, five insects to each strawberry. These insects were 

 nearly all such as were injurious to strawberry plants, and were 

 taken either from the plants they were feeding on or from the 

 ground beneath. When in 1902 the number of strawberry rows 

 was much increased, the injury done by robins to the fruit was 

 proportionately very small; and a new bed, planted on the 

 ground originally swarming with white grubs, did very well. 

 The robins so nearly exterminated the grubs that but few plants 

 were lost. 



The robins occasionally took a raspberry or currant. They 

 also took insects from the currant bushes (presumably currant 

 worms). Their heaviest toll of fruit was taken from the cherry 

 trees. In some localities their attacks on the cherries have been 

 prevented by growing the Russian mulberry, a fruit they 

 often prefer to the cherry; but this is not always a certain 

 remedy, and it is safer to plant cherry trees enough to supply 

 both the birds and the family. Much space is given here to 



