COCK ROBIN BRINGING FOOD FOR HIS CHICKS.
It was an old and popular belief that Robins covered over the bodies of dead men with leaves, hence John Webster’s ballad:
“Call for the Robin Redbreast and the Wren,[1]
Since o’er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men”;
and the well-known one, “Babes in the Wood.”
Although Cock Robin is at all times a bold bird in defence of his rights, and at some seasons liable to be considered quarrelsome and spiteful, he undoubtedly has his good points. For instance, one has been known lovingly and diligently to feed his mate after she had sustained some injury to her bill which rendered her unable to peck for herself, and I have myself watched and even photographed a Redbreast in the charitable act of feeding a family of young Thrushes in the nest whilst their mother was away searching for very difficult-to-find food during a cold, dry spring morning.
Male Robins differ from the females only in the facts that they are slightly larger and have rather brighter orange-red breasts. These differences, however, are so very trifling that it is by no means easy for even the practised eye to notice them.