THE ROBIN 389 



ascendancy over the other birds a good deal to his 

 winter bachelordom. You cannot for ever keep in 

 order your own flesh and blood. The most docile 

 of wives would sometimes take the crumb before per- 

 mission was accorded, or obey a command with less 

 than perfect alacrity, an example that might be 

 driven to almost any length by those revolutionary 

 sparrows. So not even his spouse may be allowed 

 within the four corners of the winter sphere of in- 

 fluence. She has somewhere or other her own sphere, 

 which she rules with the same relentless vigilance. 

 Or is it that some convention against nature has 

 separated the robins, and that their impatience of 

 other bird-rights is the result of unhappiness? Is 

 he in winter like a rogue elephant, his hand against 

 every one, because the world seems all out of joint ? 

 Cause and effect have no doubt alternating roles in 

 this, as well as other respects. Who shall say, for 

 example, whether the unique colouring of the robin 

 is the cause or the result of his aloofness among 

 birds ? The red of his breast is neither that of the 

 chaffinch, the bullfinch, the carmine of the goldfinch's 

 cheek, nor the fire of the gold-crest. It is, of course, 

 a thrush's red, for the robin belongs to that tribe. 

 There is a little of it under the wing of the redwing, 

 and something a little like it on the lower part of 

 the redstart's breast It may be that if you could 

 separate out the colours of the nightingale, the back 

 would be left greenish orange like the robin, and 

 there would be obtained enough of the right kind 

 of red to colour his throat and chin. The first 

 robin had a mere chin-fringe of red ; his own sense 

 of uniqueness started the race on the course that 



