"'Don't you fret, sonny,' said she; 'your mammy has some common sense if she don't trampoose all over creation watching birds.' And before I understood what she was doing she had put the nest in the top of the tin pail and hung it on a hook under the shed roof. 'Now,' she said, 'Mrs. Robin, try how you like that!'
"I watched and after a few minutes first one Robin flew under the shed and then the other, and the next thing one was sitting on the pail-nest as nice as you please!"
"Did the birds hatch?" asked Olive, Nat, and Dodo, almost in the same breath.
"Yes, they hatched all right; and then I noticed something funny. The backs and breasts of the little birds were almost naked when they were hatched, and their eyes closed tight; but when the feathers came they were spotted on their backs and breasts and not plain like their parents. Do you know," added Rap after a little pause, "that when Bluebirds are little, their backs and breasts are speckled too, though afterward they moult out plain? So there is something alike about Bluebirds and Robins that even a boy can see."
"You are quite right," said the Doctor; "the 'something alike, that even a boy can see,' is one of the things that shows these birds to be cousins, as I told you. Every one of the Silver-tongued Family is spotted when it gets its first feathers. It is strange," he added in an undertone, as if talking to himself, "how long it took some of us to find out what any bright boy can see."
The American Robin—Remember This
Length ten inches.
Upper parts slate color with a tinge of brown.
Head black on top and sides, with white spots around the eyes. Tail black with white spots on the tips of some feathers.
Under parts brick-red, except the black and white streaked throat and under the tail.