Sept., 1916 
A HOSPITAL FOR WILD BIRDS 
191 
gers, orioles, cloves, sparrows and two Calliope hummingbirds rounded out the 
grist of this dreadful bombardment of icy bullets. The fatality in this group 
of patients was very heavy, due to exposure to the ice-tvater bath they were 
subjected to for so many hours, which seemed to have developed pneumonic 
conditions. 
A more pitiful sight than those forty-five injured robins, with their 
bound-up broken wings and legs, could hardly be imagined, and what touched 
my heart most deeply was the immediate response they manifested to my 
efforts for the relief of their sufferings. Within thirty-six hours they had lost 
all fear of my presence, and 
when I would approach the 
hospital and call to them, 
“Hello birdies, do you want 
your dinner?’’, every head 
would go up, and a joyous 
note in answer greet me. 
Then, as I opened the door 
to pass in the cherries, 
earth-worms and boiled 
bread and milk, they would 
rush pell-mell upon the 
waiter and begin devouring 
the meal in voracious man- 
ner. Their jousts at feed- 
ing time were highly amus- 
ing and revealed robin na- 
ture as 1 had never seen it 
before. T h e tug-of-war 
which ensued when two 
birds grabbed opposite ends 
of the same angle-worm, was 
the occasion of hearty mer- 
riment. 
A souvenir of this hail 
storm was brought to me but 
recently. It is a mother 
Yellow Warbler covering 
her nest with out-stretched 
wings, a record of vain en- 
deavor to save the lives of 
her infant babies. Her life 
was blotted out instantly by the impact of an icy bullet on her head, and 
there in this attitude of loyal devotion to her home, she found her sepulchre, 
the dry atmosphere absorbing the liquids of the body and mummifying it. 
A fledgling robin suffering from a fracture of the right wing proved to 
be one of the most interesting of all my feathered patients. He was dwarfish 
not only in body but in mind, also possessing an irascible temper which was 
constantly in a state of explosion. He was so restless and fidgety, and dashed 
about so recklessly, that he kept his plumage in a dreadful state of dilapida- 
tion, and his wing feathers were so frazzled he could not fly, and his tail was 
Fig. 130. A Hospital for Crippled Birds maintained 
by Dr. W. W. Arnold, in Colorado Springs, Colorado 
