26 
If every bird h?s his vocation, as a 
poetical French writer suggests, that 
of the American robin must be to in¬ 
spire cheerfulness and contentment in 
men. His joyous “Cheer up! Cheer 
up ! Cheerv ! Be cheery ! ” poured out 
in the earlv morning from the top 
branch of the highest tree in the 
neighborhood, is one of the most stim¬ 
ulating sounds of spring. 
. Besides admonishing others to cheer¬ 
fulness, the robin sets the example. 
Not onlv is his cheering voice the first 
in the morning and the last at night,— 
of the day-birds,—but no rain is wet 
enough to dampen his spirits.— Olive 
Thorne Miller , In Nesting Time , p. 2. 
protected. The night hawks nest on the flat roofs of buildings and 
the swifts in unused chimneys. The swifts nest in colonies in the 
same chimneys and are often killed in great numbers by starting fires 
during cold weather in early summer. Great care should be exercised 
to avoid this whenever possible. 
To one awakened at morning and cheered at evening by their 
songs through years of childhood,'robins (not in pot-pies) are necessa¬ 
ries of life. No summer is complete without a pair of these rollicking 
birds nesting about the house. But how 
to induce a pair of wild robins to do this 
is a problem, most fascinating, but as 
yet almost wholly unsolved. I have tried 
putting up, in attractive crotches, imita¬ 
tion robins’ nests, constructed of mud 
mixed with moss, twigs, grass, strings 
and rootlets (4^ inches by 4 by 2 inches 
deep), but no robin has proved selfish 
enough to appropriate them. However, 
I had no robins’ nests on the lot for three years; on placing two of 
these nests, a pair of robins did build ?iear each. That was last season. 
This year, wishing to test the matter further, I did not place any imi¬ 
tation nests, and all the nests had been washed away by severe storms, 
and no robins have nested on the lot, although a pair has built not far 
away. Next year I shall try the dummy nests again. In very dry 
weather, or where mud is not easily obtained, it is a good plan to keep 
a pan of mud on the post with the birds’ watering dish. Mrs. Treat 
has described how robins take mud for their nests from her flower pots, 
and Olive Thorne Miller relates that a female robin has been known 
to dip herself in water, fly directly into the dust of the street and then 
pick off the mud from her feet and feathers. When it comes to this, 
we may be sure that a little help will be appreciated. Several children 
in the Worcester Ten to One Clubs have put out pans of mud and have 
been greatly delighted in a number of cases by seeing robins come and 
carry the mud away. But I hope the one who first discovers how to 
make a nook so inviting that a pair of robins cannot resist the tempta¬ 
tion to build their nest in it will tell me, and every one else, all about it. 
It is almost as hard to do without orioles and vireos and a host 
of others, and if plenty of nesting material be provided at the proper 
