The Robin at Arm's Length. 



49 



lington, Vermont, on March 3Oth. A few Bluebirds are usually reported on the same day. 

 In 1900, Robins were heard or seen in different parts of Cleveland on the ninth of March, 

 a mild, bright day, while but a week before the country was in the grip of one of the 

 worst ice-storms ever known in this region. Every exposed object was incased in solid 

 ice for days and the birds fasted or starved. 



In the choice of a nesting site, the Robin, as we have seen, obeys no law. The 

 apple tree, which from its mode of branching yields wide, open crotches and safe 



Fig. 33. Female Robin in act of cleaning the nest. 



horizontal supports, is generally chosen, but they also resort to the leafy elm, the ever- 

 green, the dense and remote woods, or like the Phcebe, accept the hospitality of barn, 

 porch, or shed. In the course of one afternoon in Sanbornton, New Hampshire, I once 

 found six nests all under cover. One was fixed to a beam inside an old barn, already 

 occupied by Swallows, the only means of entrance and egress being cracks between the 

 boards of the gable above the haymow. The Swallows shot with unerring aim through 

 these cracks, but one of their full-fledged young, which lay dead on the hay, had appar- 

 ently dashed its brains out in attempting this feat. In a dilapidated shed of another 

 barn, then abandoned, were three nests, two of which set in line and close together, were 

 doubtless the work of the same builders. 



Where the nest has already begun to crumble into ruins by the time the young fly, 



