AMERICAN ROBIN, OR MIGRATING THRUSH. 341 
straw, and a mat of old grass. The eggs, about 5, are of 
a bluish green and without spots. So nearly domestic at 
times are their habits, that an instance is known, where 
they successively raised two broods out of the same nest. 
They show great affection and anxiety for the safety of 
their young, keeping up a noisy cackling chirp when the 
place is approached ;• and they have often serious contests 
with the piratical Cuckoo, who slily watches the absence 
of the parents to devour their eggs. To avoid these visits 
and the attacks of other enemies, the Robin has been 
known to build his nest within a few yards of the black- 
smith’s anvil ; and in Portsmouth (New Hampshire) one 
was seen to employ for the same purpose the stern timbers 
of an unfinished vessel, in which the carpenters were con- 
stantly at work ; the bird appearing, by this adventurous 
association, as if conscious of the protection of so singu- 
lar and bold a situation. I have also seen a nest of the 
Robin bottomed with a mass of pine shavings, taken with- 
out alarm from the bench of the carpenter. The Euro- 
pean Thrush is sometimes equally familiar ; a pair be- 
ing known to make a nest on a harrow, among some 
other agricultural implements suspended on the joists of 
a cart-shed, in which 3 men were at work at the time ; 
and here they built and reared their young in safety. In 
this instance, the female was in such haste, that she laid 
an egg before the finishing of the nest, and while the 
male carried on the necessary labor for its completion ; 
so that this singular resort had apparently been forced 
upon the pair immediately after the loss of the object of 
their first labor, and they now successfully threw them- 
selves and their concerns upon the protection of the 
human species. From the petulant and reiterated 
chirp so commonly uttered by the Robin, when sur- 
prised or irritated, the Indians of Hudson’s Bay call 
29 * 
