BIRD INTIIVIACIES 



domestic institution. It is rarely that one finds a 

 robin's nest very far from a human habitation. 

 One spring there were four robins' nests on my 

 house and outbuildings — in the vines, on window- 

 sills, or other coigns of vantage. There were at 

 the same time at least fifteen robins' nests on my 

 lot of sixteen acres, and I am quite certain 

 that I have not seen all there were. They were in 

 sheds and apple-trees and spruces and cedars, in 

 the ends of piles of grape-posts, in rosebushes, in 

 the summer-house, and on the porch. We did not 

 expect to get one of the early cherries, and might 

 count ourselves lucky if we got any of the later ones. 



A robin has built her nest in my summer-house. 

 She abuses me so when I try to tarry there, after 

 incubation has begun, that I take no comfort and 

 presently withdraw. Until her brood has flown, I 

 am practically a stranger in my open-air rest-house 

 and study. 



When the fish crows come egging in the spruces 

 and maples about the house, and I hear the scream- 

 ing of the robins, I seize my gun and rush out to 

 protect them, but am not always successful, as the 

 mischief is often done before I get within reach; 

 I am not sure but that the robins think — if they 

 think at all — that I am in league with the crows 

 to despoil them. I was not in time to save the eggs 

 of the wood thrush the other morning, when I 

 heard the alarm calls of the birds, but I had the 



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