THE ROBIN. 



IF English children were to vote for their favourite bird, 

 out of all the birds that visit our woods and gardens, 

 our moorlands and meadows, who can doubt that 

 Robin Redbreast would receive by far the largest number 

 of votes ? 



Generation after generation of children have regarded 

 him as first favourite. For hundreds of years he has been 

 one of the few birds it has been reckoned unlucky to kill, 

 and shameful even to drive away. He figures in early 

 legends, and old ballads, and the folk-lore which is dying 

 out so fast in the cottages of the country-side to-day. 



It is said, for example, that the Robin was one of the 

 birds that flew grieving about the cross of Jesus Christ on 

 Calvary. The crossbill was another. Together they strove 

 to draw out the nails that pierced His hands and feet. 

 In vainly trying to do this, the crossbill's beak was bent 

 and twisted, and the blood of our Saviour stained red the 

 breast of the Robin, which had been white before. 



It is a beautiful fancy, and it had a good deal to do 

 with making the people of olden times spare this bird 

 when less favoured feathered fliers were killed or captured. 



But there were other loving and friendly deeds that 

 were attributed to the Robin, which helped to make him 

 popular. One of these was, that when a pair of Robins 

 chanced to find any dead person lying in the fields or 

 forests, they did their best to give him burial by fetching 

 leaves and strewing them over his face. The poet Michael 



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