NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
35 
Robins (p. 17). — Your correspondent, M. S. Young, in last month’s 
Nature Notes asked whether it was a common or local idea that in the autumn 
the young robins fight the old birds with intent to kill them. I have also heard 
the same thing while living at Hendon ; as to it being true I cannot say. 
Although having witnessed the birds fighting on several occasions, never have I 
seen the death of either combatant. It seems to be a common fable. 
14, Crane Grove, Highbury, N. Charles E. J. Hannett. 
January ii, 1901. 
In this part of Berkshire I have also heard the country-people speak of the 
young robins killing off their parents in the autumn-time, but we seldom or never, 
as your correspondent remarks, find the slain. 
Fyfield, near Abingdon. \V. H. Warner. 
Your correspondent, Mr. Young, will be perfectly .safe in saying that robins 
are very quarrelsome, and dispute even with their own offspring for the possession 
of a favourite “beat.” Some short time ago I sent a short note to this magazine 
of a fight, of which I witnessed the finale, between two robins, one of the com- 
batants being left in a dying condition. In fact, I think robins run the tits 
rather close in the point of quarrelsome dispositions. A week or tw'o ago I was 
watching a robin singing on our garden gate. lie was evidently very pleased 
with his own performance, and was starting it all over again when suddenly a 
blackbird in an adjoining garden started to sing. Immediately the robin stopped 
and puffing out his feathers looked in the direction of his rival, but realising that 
a blackbird was rather too large for him to tackle on so small a provocation, with 
a few defiant notes and the usual jerks of his tail he retired to another portion of 
the garden. 
About two years ago I had a robin brought me which had been shot. Its bill 
was crossed like that of a crossbill and was very much hooked at the tips. The 
bird, however, was very fat and did not appear to have suffered in any way from 
this malformation. 
Penzance, January 7, igoi. Arthur W. IIext Harvey. 
In my ignorance I did not know that some still look on the robin as a bird of 
evil omen, till a near neighbour talked to me in a most serious and troubled state 
on the matter. One autumn some robins would persist in paying his son unusual 
attention. They hopped about the machine, a reaper he was mending, and 
perched on it when at use in the field. The family felt certain something dreadful 
was about to happen. Shortly after this the son’s wife became “onsensed,” i.e., 
out of her mind. I merely state the facts as I know them. 
Market Weston, Thetford. Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
Ja 7 iuary 7, 1901. 
The following account of house-loving robins may interest the readers of 
Nature Notes. A pair of robins took up their abode in the drawing-room and 
built a nest among the plants in a large jardiniere. They did not in the least 
mind the presence of a large family party, nor the music and noise often going on 
in the room, but safely brought up their brood. When the young hatched out, 
the cock bird carried the eggshells and arranged them on the mantel-shelf. Not 
liking the look of them there, he carried them into the garden. The windows 
were usually left open for the birds’ convenience, but when, by reason of cold or 
wet weather, they had to be shut, the robins would fly into the conservatory 
attached to the house, but not communicating with the drawing-room, through 
the door into the hall, and then from thence through the door into the drawing- 
room. They were so tame that they' would sit on their host’s knee and take 
meal-worms from his fingers as he sat by the fire. When the brood was flown, 
the old birds at once began to build again — this time on the curtain pole in 
their hostess’ bedroom. The moss they required for this nest they fetched from 
the pots of plants on the dining-room table, going in and out of the windows 
undisturbed by the servants or by the party at meals. The cock bird would often 
perch on the top of the looking-glass in the bedroom while his hostess was at her 
toilet, and once when sitting there with his beak full of food, one of the children 
coming in suddenly startled him so that he dropped nine green caterpillars on the 
t.able and flew off, but came back in a minute or two, gathered them up and took 
