THE ROBIN 391 



he had since. First he came to the bird-table, and 

 took them as we stood near, then he took them 

 from the box while we held it in our hand. Lastly, 

 he dispensed with all formality and took his food 

 from the fingers, as all robins should. He knows 

 the box, and he knows the whistle that always 

 accompanies the offer of the delicacy. He comes 

 to us wherever we happen to be, and, when we are 

 not outside, he comes and looks into the windows to 

 see where we are. Still, he does not come into the 

 house after us, as did the robin to a friend, using 

 the letter-box when the door was shut. Just now, 

 in fact, our robin is rather shyer than he has been. 

 When we had got him up to the last pitch of 

 friendliness, the weather broke ; the frost went out 

 of the ground, bringing edible things to the top ; 

 gnats and small moths began to fly again, so that 

 mealworms out of a tobacco-box are no longer 

 indispensable. 



The white man must have his robin wherever he 

 is. Oliver Wendell Holmes laments for the American 

 because his robin, instead of being a domestic bird 

 that feeds at the table, is "a great fidgety, jerky, 

 whooping thrush." It is, indeed, no better than a 

 fieldfare, gregarious, chattering, predatory, and migra- 

 tory. The last word damns it worse than all the 

 rest. The robin must share our climate cheerfully 

 all the year round. He must cheer us on the dark- 

 est day with his tinkling song, which is to that of 

 the nightingale as the cold and greyness of December 

 are to the brilliance of May. If there were no robin 

 we would choose in his place for domesticity the 

 hedge-sparrow, which sings just a little shivery 



