AMONG THE ROBINS 
49 
his song pours forth like moonlight turned into music. His 
daylight song has more soul and colour ; it is infinitely richer 
and more varied than that which has made his fame ; but, 
as someone has wisely remarked, “ The picturesque fixes the 
world’s ideals,” and thousands rave about his serenade who do 
not so much as know that the nightingale sings at all by day. 
The harsher tones that mingle with the chorus seem only to 
enhance its sweetness. A flourishing colony of jackdaws in an 
outbuilding of Elizabethan date, the relic of an older Manor 
House, propound villainies to each other in that base chatter 
which is the very “ yiddish ” of bird languages. The rooks 
hold more honourable converse in the trees beyond the river, 
and the gossipy voices of the titmice are heard all day long. 
The soft monotonous coo of the ringdove blends admirably 
with the richer harmony. I must remark, in passing, that my 
observation of this bird in its social and domestic capacity do 
not verify the lessons, derived, I fear, from a regrettable trust in 
appearances, which poets and moralists sedulously imprint on 
the plastic minds of infancy. 
Four cousinships of titmice, the gorgeous ox-eye, and dainty 
blue tit, together with the more sober-hued marsh and coal tits, 
form part of a vagrant population that haunt Miss Walton’s 
bedroom window, the sill of which is an Ornithological restaurant 
where supplies never quite fail all the year round. In the colder 
months it is richly stocked with poppy and sunflower heads, 
tempting hollows of cocoa-nut for little birds to dip into, lumps 
of fat for the nuthatches, and hempseed — cause of much wrang- 
ling among the fierce-eyed, passionate greenfinches. Where so 
many trees are, the green and the lesser woodpecker find an 
easy living ; while in spring the hawfinches batten on green 
peas, and the bulfinches diet themselves on young fruit-buds. 
A secluded court attracts occasional visits from a grave and 
stately brown owl, on whom visitors are invited to gaze 
reverentially as if he were a Crowned Head or a Sirdar. The 
latest acquisition is a bold, bad, beautiful jay, who was found 
disporting himself on the lawn without fear or shame. Even 
here his bad name had like to have been his undoing, for the 
gardener cheerfully observed that he supposed Miss Mary 
would have no objection to his making away with that “ mis- 
chievous creature.” Needless to remark, this impious sugges- 
tion was sternly frowned down, and the right of sanctuary 
accorded to the poor jay, who, with his whole felonious clan, 
has, in truth, sore need of it. 
The pride of this Shelford Garden, however, are the robins 
— tamed by Miss Walton — robins who walk round hat-brims and 
sing on the top of parasols, utilise people’s hands according to 
need, as dining-table or duelling-ground, and regard the human 
thumb as an ingenious instrument expressly designed by Provi- 
dence for them to cleanse their beaks on. This intimacy with 
the robins has lasted now for many months. It had its beginning 
