362 - Rob: A Bird Biography. [June, 
fence, teasing the testy dog which keeps up with him on the other 
side. Often Rob had his disposition tried by some one rasping a 
finger along the wires of the cage. He would pursue the 
obnoxious digit, snapping his bill furiously, as only a bird can do, 
By and by would be heard a sharp involuntary “Oh!” telling 
that Rob had got in a good point on his tormentor, and thus 
closed the game. 
Our robin often afforded matter for study and delight in those 
expressive attitudes of which birds only are capable, and which 
too effectually elude the artist’s pencil. What high-wrought 
excitability and poetic expression appear in these movements. 
~ What barbaric defiance in the cresting of the crown feathers of 
the head, that queer furring up, or puffiness of the cheeks, indi- 
cating that the hearing is keyed to a strain; that jaunty setting 
of the head, and saucy cocking of the eye, for a bird never looks 
so knowing as when he looks sidewise—all this fills a hiatus — 
where speech cannot get in. Even the tail adds to the action. 
Now comes a decisive chirp. A conclusion has been reached in 
the bird mind. Next is a series of rapid chirps, making a whirr 
of sound. This is the call-note of his tribe, for he has detected 
a turdite in yonder grove, and hark! the call is answered. 
But what does Rob know of his clan? Well, some knowledge 
he has of inheritance, for there is both with birds and men a 
knowledge which cometh not with observation; some of their 
ways have come to him by descent. It is now March, and Rob 
has the spring fever badly, that migratory phrenzy which has set 
the whole tribe moving north. While the spell lasts he is impa- 
tient of home, and is as mad asa March hare. Some robins in 
that cherry tree have set him fairly wild; and even when there is 
neither sight nor. sound of bird, that migratory impulse, that 
mystic call to move and mate, keeps the poor bird uneasy. 
Happily it does not last many days. By April he does some- 
thing better than chirp, for he gets into a strain like the conjugal 
song of the robins. Through several days it is so low, soft and 
silvery, so tender and sweet; but this over the melody is set on 
a higher key, and becomes a volume of exultant rapture. He has 
now taken up an octave flute. In his dumpy moods he has been 
talked to pettingly so much, that he knows the words like a book: 
“Wake up, pretty boy! Wake up! Wake up!” The boys sing 
the words, again, and again, Then they whistle them. The bird | 
