CHAPTER XXI.. Our Robin Redbreast.

OUR ROBIN REDBREAST.

Almost every child knows the robin redbreast. He is a great favorite wherever he goes. We have him with us in Southern California only in winter time for a few weeks after the rains have come. When our ground is mellow with moisture, and the angle-worms have worked their way to the top, leaving little loose hillocks all about the yard, then we look out for a visit from the robins.

They come in companies great enough to fill the tree-tops, and their constant song reminds us of old times when we lived in the New England States.

Robins are "water birds" in a way, although they do not swim. They are perfectly at home in wet grass or foliage, and even in a rain storm. They never seem to have any use for umbrellas.

Once, while on a visit to some friends in the east, we found two baby robins which were blown from their nest in a storm. We fed them with bread soaked in milk, and fresh beef, and they thrived. We shut them in an empty room upstairs, and they soon learned to look for us and to know our step. They would fly to the crack of the doorway and squeal when they heard us coming. Before we dared open the door, we had to push the birds away, for fear they would be caught and hurt.

When we were ready to start for our California home, we put the robins in a cage, taking as much food as we thought they would need on the journey. In a day or two the meat gave out, and they grew tired of bread and water. They coaxed constantly for beef, so we asked a porter on our car to get some for them.

By this time most of the passengers had become interested in our robins, and a gentleman offered to keep them in beef for the rest of the journey. He would go out once a day, when the train stopped long enough, and buy some beef. Our pets came to be quite an attraction in the car, and everybody was anxious to do something for the little travellers.

We took the birds to the dressing-room each day to clean the cage and to give them a bath. We washed them one at a time, in our hands, holding them under the gently flowing faucet. At first they objected, but they soon grew to like it.

During the first year they never sang a note, for their unmusical squeak could certainly not be called singing. The second spring we gave them a large cage in the yard, that they might make the acquaintance of other birds. In a short time an old mocking-bird came and gave them music lessons.

The teacher would twist his toes around the wires of the cage, in this way holding himself close to the birds. Then he would twitter softly, until the young birds had learned to respond and to twitter too.

When at last the robins did have a song, it was a mixture of robin and mocking-bird notes. They did not speak pure robin all that year.

After they were grown-up birds, the mocker who had taught them music took a great dislike to them. This was very strange, for he had been so fond of his little pupils, dropping berries down through the cage wires, and calling them all sorts of pet names in his own language. Now he would scold them and peck at them and scare them, until we were obliged to cover a part of the cage.

In a year or two the male robin got out of the cage and flew away. We could hear him far out of sight in the trees, but he would not come back, though we called to him in our kindest tones. He was out all night, and we supposed he was dead, as he was at the mercy of the mocking-birds.

What was our surprise early in the morning to find him on the hitching-post near the house, with his bill wide open, screaming for his breakfast. But he would not let us put our hands on him.

Then we thought of a plan to catch him, the same by which wild animals are sometimes caught. We scattered some crumbs from the post where he sat to the door of the cage, and Robin went to picking them up, of course, being very hungry and not thinking about the consequences. He followed the trail of the crumbs until, before he knew it, he was safe within the cage and the door was shut.

Once again he got away from us, but we knew he would come back at meal-time, if the shrikes and the mockers did not find him. Birds which have lived for a while in a cage seem to be perfectly helpless when out at liberty, not knowing how to find food for themselves, and dying of hunger in the midst of plenty.

Sure enough, at supper time Robin came back, clamoring for his share. There was a soft, moist place in the garden where we were in the habit of digging worms for the robins at night. We took the cage and set it down by this place, with the door tied back.

We went to work with the spade, pretending not to notice the little runaway, who hopped close to us and screamed at his little innocent mate in the cage. We threw some worms in at the open door for the bird on the inside, who ate them, taking no notice of her companion on the outside.

Suddenly the outsider hopped to the hole where we were digging and tried to grab the worms before we had time to pick them up. But we cheated him, understanding his little game, and dodged past him with the coveted worms. He, standing on tiptoe, danced about in the funniest fashion, still trying to snatch the worms. All at once, taunting him with a good long-worm, we threw it past him into the cage. Away the bird ran after it, and the little fellow who loved so well to "play hookie" was caught once more.