Stories of Birds | Page 6

up my mind that if watchful eyes and careful ears could
help a little girl, I would get ahead of Jack.
"Sure enough, the first thing I heard this morning was your sweet song.
When did you arrive? Aren't you rather early?"
By this time the robin was on the ground, pecking away at the grain. As
he ate his breakfast he told his story.
[Illustration: "By this time the robin was on the ground" (missing from
book)]
"I have been south all winter long," he said. "It is very lovely in the
southland. Food is plenty, the days are long, and the sunshine is golden,
bright, and warm.
"But as soon as the spring days came I grew restless. I knew the snow
was beginning to melt and the grass to grow green in my old home
country. I wanted to start north at once.
"I spoke to my little mate about it, and found her to be as homesick as I.
So we flew north a little earlier than usual this year, and arrived ahead
of the others. We are now quite anxious to get to housekeeping, and are
already looking for a suitable place for a nest."
"If you will build near us," said Phyllis, "I will help you care for your
little ones. I will give you all the crumbs that you can eat."
"Oh! oh!" chirped the robin; "you are very kind, Phyllis, but I hardly
think you would know how to feed bird babies.
"You see our babies are so fond of bugs and worms and all sorts of
insects, that they do not care for crumbs when they can have nice fat
worms.
"We sometimes feed berries and cherries to our babies. We older birds
often eat fruit, but really we like worms and bugs better."

"The robins ate all the cherries from the top of our cherry-tree last
year," said Phyllis.
"Yes, we did eat some of your cherries," admitted the robin. "They
were very sweet and juicy.
"There are people who say that we robins are a nuisance, and that we
destroy so much fruit that they wish we would never come near them.
The fact is, we do more good than harm to your orchards and berry
patches. Just think how many insects we destroy! If it were not for us I
think much more fruit would be destroyed by insects. And worms and
caterpillars would be crawling everywhere.
"A robin is a very greedy fellow. He eats nearly all the time. I could not
begin to tell you how many insects I have eaten during my life.
"There are cutworms, too, which live underground. During the night
they come out for food. We robins are early risers, and often catch the
slow worms before they can get back to their underground homes."
"Ah," laughed Phyllis, "that must be the reason that we say that the
early bird catches the worm."
"When our babies come," said the robin, "we are very busy, indeed.
Those young mouths seem always to be open, begging for more food.
"My mother says that when I was a baby robin she was kept busy all
day long.
"There were four baby birds in the nest. I myself ate about seventy
worms in a day. My brother and sisters had as good appetites as I."
"Will you build here in the apple-tree?" asked Phyllis. "I should so like
to watch you. Besides, there is a garden just beneath with millions of
bugs and insects there."
"Oh, yes," replied the robin. "We shall surely build there. You will find
that robins like to build near your home. We have a very friendly

feeling towards people. That is the reason that we hop about your lawn
so much and that we waken you by singing near your window in the
early morning."
"I have heard that robins are not very good nest-builders," said Phyllis.
"I was told that a great number of robins' nests were blown down by
every hard storm."
"More are destroyed than I like to think about," said the robin. "But my
father and mother raised three families of birds in their nest last season.
"Early in the spring they were very busy about their nest-building. First
they brought sticks, straw, weeds, and roots. With these they laid the
foundation in what seemed a very careless fashion, among the boughs.
"Then here on this foundation they wove the round nest of straws and
weeds. They plastered it with mud. They lined it with soft grasses and
moss.
"In this nest my mother laid four beautiful greenish-blue eggs. From the
first egg that cracked open I crept out. From the three other eggs came
my brother and sisters.
"We were not handsome babies. I don't believe bird babies