The Western Robin 
“Robin has cast in his lot with 
ours, for better or for worse. Our 
lawns are his lawns, our shade trees 
were set on purpose to hold his 
homely mud-cup, and he has under¬ 
taken with hearty good will the 
musical instruction of our children. 
He serves without pay—Oh, a cherry 
now and then, but what of that? 
The fruit-grower never had a more 
useful hired man; and it is written: 
‘Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that 
treadeth out the corn.’ 1 wonder if 
we realize how much of life’s good 
cheer and fond enspiriting we owe 
to this familiar bird.” (The Birds 
of Washington.) 
_ All of which foregoing is only 
Taken hi Oregon w^FMey partially true of California. We have 
back from market brought with us, most of us, our 
eastern prejudices and associations, 
just as our forebears did theirs from Merry England, and we cling to 
prepossessions, half unwittingly, in much the same fashion. The original 
Robin Redbreast (Erithacus rubecula ) is a much smaller bird (albeit still 
a Thrush), but the colonists hailed the first gleam of friendly “red” which 
shone from the breast of this new world thrush, and transferred their 
affections promptly to the new-found “Robin.” And Robin has lived up 
to expectations well enough to deserve still further indulgence in Califor¬ 
nia, where he is both less well-known and less well-behaved. For save in 
favored sections of the Sierran uplands, the northeastern plateau region, 
and the humid coast belt south to, and lately including, San Francisco, 
the Robin is not the familiar of childhood nor the poet of common day. 
For the most part the bird nests in our cooler mountain climate in “Tran¬ 
sition” or “Canadian” faunal zones, even up to the limit of trees, so that 
it is only as an irregular winter visitant—shy, silent, fugitive, but often 
excessively numerous—that urban California know's the Robin. Only 
the stout-hearted Sierran, the prospector, or the semi-professional camper- 
out knows the Western Robin as he deserves to be known. 
Dr. Grinnell gives the picture of Robin in the Yosemite Valley: 1 
“Robins hop familiarly along the paths between the rows of tents, or 
dash in heedless flight close past the many people. Often a robin will 
Sierra Club Bulletin, Vol. 8, June, 1911, pp. 118-124. 
762 
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