THE ROBINS 
When the birds were larger it was 
even more evident than it had been 
before that they were much of the 
time anxiously waiting and longing to 
be ied; they would look first in one 
direction and then in another for the 
mother-bird, and every 
once in a while all 
open their beaks wide 
and beg. Sometimes 
apparently a sound 
would make them think 
the mother was near, 
and there would be a 
great fluttering and 
twittering and stretch- 
ing and opening of 
beaks; then they would 
become quiet again. 
The artist watched 
and waited and sympa- 
A CONFERENCE. 
thized with the intense longing of the 
little birds, and joined in the wild ex- 
citement when the mother-bird ap- 
peared with a worm. So deeply was 
she interested, that once or twice, 
when the excitement was very great, 
she forgot to draw the cover from the 
plzte-holder and so lost the pictures. 
“If they get hungry so quickly,’ 
thought the artist, and show such 
anxious longing for their food, even 
NES yi 
when they are regularly cared for by 
the parent birds, how they must suffer 
when any accident happens! How is 
it when the mother never comes 
again? Tow long do the hungry little 
mouths keep open in vain, 
and the 
A SUN BATH. 
cries continue, before the little ones 
starve, when made orphans by 
some cruel shot or stone thrown 
by a thoughtless boy?” 
The artist wished that those who 
enjoy shooting could watch these 
robins feed their young, so faith- 
fully and untiringly, for she felt 
that they must sympathize with 
_ them and with the longing and de- 
light of the little ones, and that 
_ they never again would find pleas- 
ure in killing or wounding any 
bird. 
Before long there was an empty 
nest, and four happy young birds 
had flown away and were busily 
seeking their own food and in their 
= turd helping those who had tried 
so hard to protect them, by de- 
vouring large numbers of the very 
destructive cutworms, cankerworms, 
beetles, grasshoppers and caterpillars. 
Ornithologists say that a young robin 
in the nest requires a daily supply of 
animal food equivalent to considerably 
more than its own weight; and so we 
can form some idea of how much good 
these four robins must have done in 
the fields and garden before the sum- 
mer was over. 
