The Children's Book of Birds

by Olive Thorne Miller

The best known of this family is the robin, American Robin, to give him his whole name. He is found all over the United States. In the summer he lives in the Eastern and Middle States, in the winter he lives in the Southern States, and he lives all the year round in California.

The California robin is called the Western Robin, and is a little lighter in color than his Eastern brother; but he is the same jolly fellow under his feathers, and robin song is about the same from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

I'm sure you all know how he looks, with black head, slate-colored back and wings, streaked throat, and dull red or chestnut breast. His mate is not quite so dark in color.

Robins start for their nesting-place, which is their real home, very early, almost the first of the birds. They make a nest, not very high, in a tree or about our houses, with a good deal of mud in it. Not all nests are alike. Sometimes a bird will show a fancy for a pretty-looking nest. I have seen one made of the white flowers of life-everlasting. The stems were woven together for the framework, and the little clusters of blossoms left outside for ornament.

The young robin just out of the nest is a pretty fellow, with spots all over his breast and shoulders. He spends most of his time calling for food, for he is always hungry. He is rather clumsy in getting about, and often falls to the ground. But if you pick him up and put him on a low branch out of the reach of cats, he will fly as soon as your hand leaves him, and generally come to the ground again. So it is of no use to try to help him that way. The only thing you can do is to keep cats and bad boys away from him, until he flies up into a tree.

The robin gets his food on the ground, or just under the surface. He eats many caterpillars and grubs that are harmful to us. One that he specially likes is the cutworm, which has a bad way of biting off young plants. In the East he eats many earthworms, which we see him pull out of the ground on the lawn, but in the West, where there are not so many earthworms, he picks up insects of various kinds.

All through spring, when insects are hard at work destroying our fruit and vegetables and young grains, the robin spends almost his whole time catching them; first for his own eating, but many more when his little ones get out of the shell, for young birds eat a great amount of food. Then, when he has spent months in our service killing insects, so that our fruit and vegetables can grow, do you not think he has earned part of the cherries he has saved?

Robins are very easily made tame, and, when well treated and not shut up in a cage, they become fond of people and like to live in our houses. I know of a robin who was picked up from the ground by a lady. He could not fly, and she took him into a house and brought him up. He was never wild or afraid of people, and he never wanted to be free. His mistress would sometimes put him on her hat, without fastening him in any way, and go out to walk with him there. He liked his ride, and never thought of leaving her. She often took him with her into a piece of woods where she went. He would play around on the ground and in the trees, but the moment she started for home he flew down, ready to go.

She thought perhaps he would like to be free, and she tried once or twice to leave him in this pleasant grove, but he always flew to her and refused to be left. He was so fond of his mistress that when she went away for a day or two he was very unhappy, hid himself in a closet, and would not eat till she came back.