Some Robins' Nests 



149 



RAILROAD YARD WHERE A ROBIN'S NEST WAS 

 MOVED THREE TIMES 



enter the shop and she would leave at once, and from a perch on an old wagon- 

 wheel or a nearby tree, protest against his presence. 

 The kindly blacksmith, 



by taking out a glass from 



the window on the side of 



the shop, enabled the old 



birds to pass in and out 



through this opening when 



the shop door was closed. 

 But these examples of 



the birds' confidence in 



man and man's kindly 



interest in the birds' wel- 

 fare are dwarfed by the 



history of a pair of Robins 



that built their nest on the 



under side of an oil-tank 



car standing near the center 



of the busy yards of the 



Standard Oil Company's plant at South Norwalk, last June. The nest was 



known and watched by the workmen and six eggs were laid — an unusual 



number — before the car was filled 

 with oil and ready to be started 

 out on the road. 



The foreman, not without some 

 misgivings, removed the nest while 

 the switch engine took away the 

 car and shunted another tank car 

 as near as he could to the place. 

 The nest was carefully placed in 

 the same relative position on the 

 new car and the birds returned at 

 once. This car, too, left the yards, 

 and a third car, to which the nest 

 had been transferred, was also 

 billed to leave. The foreman was 

 ■ puzzled to know what to do as 

 there were now four half-grown 

 birds in tlie nest. 



A happy thought came to him 

 when he built an open box and 



ROBIN FEEDING YOUNG IN THE STANDARD nailed it to ouc of the posts of the 



OIL COMPANY'S YARD AFTER ITS NEST , . 1 1 i • m- 



HAD BEEN MOVED THREE TIMES platfomi used by the men m filling 



