Birds of Song and Story

CHAPTER I. Our Comrade the Robin

OUR COMRADE THE ROBIN

Robin, Sir Robin, gay-vested knight, Now you have come to us, summer's in sight; You never dream of the wonders you bring-- Visions that follow the flash of your wing. How all the beautiful by and by Around you and after you seems to fly; Sing on, or eat on, as pleases your mind. Well have you earned every morsel you find. "Aye! ha! ha! ha!" whistles Robin. My dear, Let us all take our own choice of good cheer.

Lucy Larcom.

On account of its generous distribution, and the affection for the bird in the heart of Young America and England alike, the robin shall be given first place among the singing birds. He is the "Little Wanderer"--as the name signifies--the "Robin-son Crusoe" of almost every clime and race.

True, he may be a warbler instead of a thrush in the Old World; but what does that signify? To whatever class or family he may belong by right of birth and legend, the bird of the red breast is the bird of the human breast.

It is impossible to study the early history of birds in any language and not stumble upon legend and superstition. And the more we read of these the more we come to delight in them. There may not be a bit of truth in the matter, but there is fascination. It is like delving among the dust and cobwebs of an old attic. The more dust and cobwebs, the more fun in coming upon things one never went in quest of.

Of course superstition has its objections; but when the robin is the point at issue, we may waive objections and go on our merry ways satisfied that the oldest and clearest head in the family will concur.

Legends concerning our comrade the robin are full of tender thought of him. They have kept his memory green through the rain and shine of centuries, even going so far as to embalm him after death, as will be seen.

It is well-nigh impossible to give the earliest date in which the robin is mentioned as a "sacred bird." Certain it is that he ranks with characters of "ye olden time," for myth and superstition enshrined him. The literature of many tongues has preserved him. Poetry and sculpture have embodied him and given him place among the gods and winged beings that inhabit the "neighbor world." Did he not scorch his original gray breast by taking his daily drop of water to lost souls? Did he not stain it by pressing his faithful heart against the crown of thorns? Or, did he not burn it in the Far North when he fanned back into flame the dying embers which the polar bear thought to have trampled out in his wrath that white men invaded his shores? Was he not always the "pious bird?"--though it must be confessed that his beak alone seemed to be possessed of religious tendencies. Was he not the original church sexton who covered the dead, with impartial beak, from eye of sun and man, piling high and dry the woodland leaves about them? The wandering minstrel, the orphan child, or the knight of kingly robe, each shared his sweet charity.

The English ballad of the "Babes in the Wood" immortalized his memory in poetical sentiment:

"Their little corpse the robin-redbreast found, And strewed with pious bills the leaves around."

Earlier than the pathetic career of these Babes, homage was paid to the robins,

"Who with leaves and flowers do cover The friendless bodies of unburied men."

This superstition of the robin's art in caring for the dead runs through many of the old poets, Drayton, Grahame, Hood, Herrick, and others. Strict justice in the matter would have divided the praise of him with the charitable night winds, for it was they more than he who "covered friendless bodies." The sylvan shades of the Old World being then more comprehensive than now, unburied men, from any cause, found their last resting-place in the lap of the forest, sleeping wherever they fell, since no laws of "decent burial" governed the wilds. The night winds, true to their instincts then as now, swirled the fallen leaves about any object in their way, in the fashion of a burial shroud. As a matter of course, credit was given to the robin, whose voracious appetite always led him to plunder litter of any sort in search of food. Up bright and early, as is still his habit (since at this hour he is able to waylay the belated night insect), the robin was spied bestirring the forest leaves, and unbeknown to himself was sainted for all time.

And his duties were not confined to those of sexton alone, for, according to good witnesses, he became both sculptor and clergyman--

"For robin-redbreasts when I die Make both my monument and elegy,"

--stripping, as they were supposed to do, the foliage from the trees on which to write their elegies, and so leaving the uncovered trunks as monumental shafts.

According to tradition, it was the robin who originated the first conception of decorating the graves of martyrs.

"The robin-redbreast oft at evening hours Shall kindly lend his aid, With hoary moss and gathered flowers To deck the grave where thou art laid."

And again from one of the old poets, who was naturally anxious that his own last rites should be proper as well as pathetic:

"And while the wood nymphs my old corpse inter, Sing thou my dirge, sweet-warbling chorister; My epitaph in foliage next write this: 'Here, here, the tomb of Robert Herrick is.'"

And so it came to pass, by the patronage of the poets, that in the early centuries this little bird came to be protected by an affectionate, unwritten law. To molest a redbreast was to bring the swift vengeance of lightning on the house. The ancient boy knew better, if he cherished his personal safety, than to steal a young bird for the purpose of captivity, for

"A robin in a cage Sets all heaven in a rage."

The "sobbing, sobbing of pretty, pretty robin" would surely call down upon the head of the luckless thief the dire displeasure of the deities; as runs the rhyme, meant in all reverence (as it should also be quoted);

"The robin and the wren Are God Almighty's cock and hen. Him that harries their nest Never shall his soul have rest."

Terrible punishments were thus meted out to the ancient urchin whose instincts would lead him to rob bird's nests.

In Pilgrim's Progress, Christiana is said to have been greatly astonished at seeing a robin with a spider in its beak. Said she, "What a disparagement it is to such a little, pretty bird as the robin-redbreast is, he being also a bird above many, that loveth to maintain a kind of sociableness with man; I had thought they had lived on crumbs of bread--I like him worse than I did-."

And the wordy-wise Interpreter, to clinch a moral lesson in the mind of the religious woman, explained how the robins "when they are by themselves, catch and gobble up spiders; they can change their diet (like the ungodly hypocrite), drink iniquity, and swallow down sin like water." And so, obedient to her spiritual adviser, Christiana liked the robin "worse than she did." Poor soul; she should have observed for herself that for a robin to gobble up a spider is no "iniquity." Did she think that crumbs grew on bushes, ready made for early breakfast, or that the under side of woodland leaves was buttered to order?

Spiders the robin must have, else how could he obtain the strings for his harp? Wherever the spider spins her thread, there is her devotee, the robin. He may not be seen to pluck and stretch the threads, but the source of them he loves, and he says his best grace above this dainty of his board. Our pet robin was known to stand patiently by the crack of a door, asking that it be opened wider, as, in his opinion, a spider was hiding behind it. He heard her stockinged tread, as he hears also the slippered feet of the grub in the garden sod--provided the grubs have feet, which it is known they can do tolerably well without.

Sure it is the world over, be he thrush or warbler, the robin is partial to bread and butter; to bread thrice buttered if he can get it. Fat of any sort he craves. The more practical than sentimental believe that he uses it in the preparation of the "colors done in oil" with which he tints his breast. For lack of oil, therefore, where it is not provided by his friends, or discovered by himself, his breast is underdone in color, paling even to dusky hue; so that, would you have a redbreast of deepest dye, be liberal with his buttered bread.

And his yellow mouth! Ah, it is the color of spring butter when the dandelions are astir, oozing out, as it were, when he is very young, as if for suggestion to those who love him.

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