THE NOTES OF BIRDS. 
71 
against each other on the same tree, and I believe that it ended 
in their Hying at each other, but, boughs intervening, I could not 
be sure. Then robins, when they have their young about — a 
time of great trial and anxiety to the old ones — sing continually, 
to let them know where they are to be found and keep them 
together, and I have noticed that there is one long, low, often- 
repeated and most pathetic note (they call it here), which 
is used to draw a young out of danger, and it is very effective ; 
not that they rely on that only ; they will sometimes dash down 
violently on the little one and drive it away, if it approaches one 
too rashly. 
Very various are the feelings that the robin expresses by its 
wonderful organ— one might almost say of speech. Certainly it 
is more like speech than that of any other bird I know, though 
I have had here lately a quite curiously eloquent cole-tit. It was 
constantly here for months, hanging about the window, as tits 
do, in all sorts of positions, but generally upside down, and 
emitting a number of loud and lively notes with quite different 
meanings ; but at last it suddenly disappeared, to my great regret, 
for it was most amusing. It was alsoa masterful bird, for which 
reason I gave it the name of King Cole, as it set all the others at 
defiance. It came, I think, as third husband to a dear little old 
hen cole-tit which has been here for two or three years — so small 
and so wise. But not eloquent — no ; she flutters before the 
window, but seldom utters a cry, though once, when her first 
husband had been found dead on the top of a wall opposite, after 
waiting and looking about for him disconsolately for a day or 
two, she sat in the rose bush and set up a loud wailing like an 
American Indian woman for her brave. A fourth mate has 
arrived, but we do not care much for him yet. King Cole used 
to express most emphatically a great variety of feelings, from 
gratitude to rage, if kept too long waiting. Once, when he wished 
his little wife to come to dinner, and she did not appear, he began 
a curious little dolorous cry, all the time clapping the mandibles 
together. It was like the whimpering of a child ; not a call, 
certainl}/ — too low for that. 
I had a robin once that used to call me to the window to feed 
it by means of a strain that it appeared to have invented on 
purpose. It was quite unmistakable, and very short and low ; 
it did not wish other birds to hear, for robins greatly prefer to eat 
alone, though they will take food away for their wives as well as 
their children, and sometimes will call them to some near bush 
for that. But there the hen will sit, not venturing to come near. 
It seems to be a rule with the birds that 1 have observed that 
the male is to eat first, the female waiting till he has finished, 
trembling with impatience, perhaps, but not venturing even to 
look at him — on the contrary, carefully looking another way. 
This looks curiously like a beginning of an idea of etiquette, but 
I suppose it is only fear of the stronger bird. 
The robin’s sense of hearing must also be a very wonderful 
