HGR ALU TD UB ON: BOLLE TIN 
nearly ready to leave; on July 11 four well grown young were overflowing 
from the battered nursery. Honey Locust and Fancy Legs were busy travel- 
ing back and forth with bills stuffed full of earthworms and insects. 
Janet found a baby on the ground and her sister climbed up and care- 
fully replaced it. Not long after there was a great to-do; another had 
ventured out and been pounced upon by the neighbors’ little dog. The 
others waited one more day, then left in safety. 
So this handsome pair had raised three families, not to mention an 
orphan. We lost sight of them after that, but on October 12 we were 
excited to capture Fancy Legs in a trap. She was excited too; she screamed 
her loudest. — 
The next spring an unbanded pair adopted the nest under the southwest 
corner of the bungalow and brought off a family. Fancy Legs and Honey 
Locust were never seen again. This was true of many of our favorites. 
There was Two-toes, the first robin we banded in Ohio and who placidly 
ate on the shelf each day throughout the spring; White-paw who nested 
on a shelf in our shed; Carnation who built on the hospitable bungalow 
next door; and others, decorated with colored bands, but unnamed. Once 
we had word from the winter home: 34-238152, a fine male that had been 
feeding a baby in the honey locust in June 1935 was reported to us by the 
Biological Survey as “caught during a severe snowstorm Dec. 22, 1985, 
in Cordele, Georgia.” 
Five robins, however, returned to Interpont. Three nested with us 
two years in succession, while Ruby and Emerald not only were present 
three years in succession, but each year were mates! I banded both of 
them in March, 1931, giving two red anklets to one, two green to the other. 
In 1932 Ruby returned February 10, and in 1933 January 25! Three days 
later I caught him; he was in splendid plumage and weighed the most of 
any robin I ever handled. He did not start to sing, however, until February 
19; at that date he was still our only representative of the robins that 
were to nest with us, but during the next few days other males arrived. 
Emerald never came until March. In 1933 Ruby had an unbanded mate on 
March 5, but a few days later her place had been taken by Emerald. I 
wondered whether there had been a battle. 
Ruby and Emerald nested with our neighbors to the north and I know 
little of their success in raising offspring. Once I noted: 
“Skyblue and Greenleaf consider the feeding shelf their exclusive 
property and drive off Ruby and Emerald with screams.” 
In his interesting book on “The Cowbirds” Herbert Friedman says 
that robins will not tolerate cowbird eggs and he gives instances of the 
immediate ejection of such additions to the nest. We wondered how our 
robins felt in this matter. Having a deserted cowbird’s egg on hand, I 
put it in the nest of Mrs. Cherry No. I when she was absent. Upon her 
return she ‘seized the speckled object and carried it away. Later I had a 
similar experience with a Michigan robin. So these experiments corrobo- 
rated Dr. Friedman’s experience. 
On April 29, 1933, I cleaned out the English sparrow nest from our 
