building it is shared by both birds whose union day of labor is 

 sixteen hours long. The nest building is* quickly done under 

 such circumstances. The eggs, three to five, are greenish-blue, 

 1.00 X .80 inches. 



The foundations of a nest were laid on the fire escape of 

 the author's school on Thursday morning, and on the following 

 Monday, it was not only completed but it contained two eggs. 

 Two more eggs were laid on the two following days. Then for 

 the next fourteen days the patient female brooded her eggs. 

 During twenty days after that both birds hurried back and forth 

 several times an hour between that nest and nearby gardens 

 bringing unnumbered worms to their babies. The nest build- 

 ing, the hatching and the feeding were done in the presence 

 of hundreds of children who looked down daily into the nest. 

 When at last, during an intermission, the parent birds coaxed 

 their family to fly to the nearest tree, a thousand throats 

 cheered the young travelers and bade them good-bye. 



Possibly the Robins may take a ripe cherry or two from 

 the farmer's trees, but they more than repay the owner by 

 the destruction of many noxious worms and insects. As you 

 watch the old birds bringing food to their children, you wonder 

 where they stow away all of it. Their little mouths are always 

 open at the approach of either parent and their cry for more 

 is almost constant. By a careful test made with a Robin when 

 it was six weeks old, it was found to eat one and two-fifths 

 times its own weight of earth-worms in a day. 



In cities and towns as well as in the country, the worst 

 enemies of the Robins are not bad boys but cats which climb 

 the trees and get the little ones or watch and wait until they 

 leave the nest and come to the ground. Then they catch and 

 eat them. If Robins did not raise two broods of young a year, 

 the cats would soon greatly reduce their numbers if they did 

 not destroy the species. 



59 



