THE ROBIN 



WE spread some crumbs on a suburban lawn, and in 

 a short time there came for them sparrows, starlings, 

 tits, blackbirds, and the robin. Dowdy, tumultuous 

 sparrows that snouted the crusts about as long as 

 there were crusts, starlings that walked round and 

 round and dragged at the tender side of a lump 

 of fat, blackbirds that just looked in between two 

 courses of worm, tits that demanded and got a 

 cocoa-nut to swing upon and the robin. 



There is nothing plural or multitudinous about 

 the robin. He is a bird alone and apart, never in 

 winter condescending to the company of any other 

 of his own or any feathered species. As we write, 

 the great tits have the monopoly of the cocoa-nut. 

 The bird that hangs there and takes plunges half 

 out of sight for the woody white meat is magni- 

 ficent in his blue-black setting to the Gladstone 

 collar beneath the eye, in his saffron waistcoat open- 

 ing to show a black stock within, and in his bright 

 indigo back, shot at the edges with coppery green. 

 But you could not in justice take his portrait with- 

 out including also that of his mate waiting close 

 below and pushing him from the cocoa-nut before 

 he has quite finished his turn. But beyond them, 

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