"22 Bulletin No. 3 



accounted for. With all the love and devotion of a parent-bird the robin 

 who came to us first was teaching the other to come at a peculiar call 

 and whether it was hungry or not to take the food. There could not 

 have been more than three weeks difference in their ages, yet this baby 

 had taken upon himself what would have been no small burden for an 

 older bird and the only lack he seemed to show was judgment as to 

 quantity, for he literally stuffed his little charge. Many came to see 

 them and all could but wonder at such a display of tenderness in one 

 «o young. All this time the little care taker was being fed from our 

 hands and his first food in the morning was bread and milk. He in- 

 variably fed his little charge before eating a mouthful, then flew back 

 to the dish and to us to be fed. When the first strawberries were 

 offered him, the temptation was too great and he treated himself to 

 the first mouthful though remembered his little friend in a very 

 generous manner after one taste. He taught it to bathe, having learned 

 the habit himself very early. His bathtub was a soup-plate and it was 

 very amusing to see him driving his small pupil round and round the 

 dish until he at last would hop in. When they seemed able to go out, 

 we opened the window and after two hours of waiting and looking out 

 into such a big world, they took flight one to the front, the other to the 

 back of the house. They called to each other until they came together 

 and they stayed about our yard for several days. A chair having 

 numerous rounds and a straight top was a favorite resting place of 

 the older robin while in the room and a neighbor found one on a chair 

 on his piazza the morning after they went out. The next year was the 

 one when the canker worms were so numerous, and the same chair 

 was used in the orchard. A robin came to it and hopped about exactly 

 as our little friend was accustomed to do and we were convinced that 

 he had returned to us as other robins seemed afraid of him. 



The next one was brought to us by a neighbor when very young, 

 the only one of a family of four he was able to save from a cat. We 

 put him in a cage where he lived until he was quite large, and like all 

 the rest his appetite was an object lesson to any one who doubts the 

 absolute necessity of birds as destroyers of insect pests. He became 

 very fond of the common white grub, the larvae of the May beetle 

 and an exact account was kept one day of the number he ate. It was 

 forty-seven and I think he would have eaten more if he had been 

 allowed to. At the same time he had bread and milk, fruit and in- 

 sects. This was at this time the most loving and familiar of our robin 

 friends, but we felt that no wild bird should be kept a prisoner, so 

 took him to a hill some distance from the house and opened the cage 

 door. I was obliged to take him from the cage, but his fright upon 



