tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">193

The Sapsucker. (G. C. Embody) 198 Baby Flickers Just Out of their Hole. (A. R. Dugmore) 199 {xv} The Flicker. (C. W. Beebe) 206 Two Baby Cuckoos on the Rickety Bundle of Sticks that by Courtesy we Call a Nest. (Verne Morton) 207 Waiting for Mamma and Fish. (A. W. Anthony) 210 Young Belted Kingfisher on his Favourite Snag. (A. W. Anthony) 210 Kingfisher on the Look-out for a Dinner. (A. W. Anthony) 211 Turkey Buzzard: One of Nature's Best Housecleaners. (C. W. Beebe) 226 The Beautiful Little Sparrow Hawk. (C. W. Beebe) 227 Father and Mother Barn Owls. (Silas A. Lottridge) 232 The Heavenly Twins: Young Barn Owls. (Silas A. Lottridge) 233 A Little Screech Owl in the Sunlight Where Only a Photographer Could Find him. (C. W. Beehe) 236 Mrs. White on her Nest while Bob Whistles to her from the Wild Strawberry Patch. (A. R. Dugmore) 237 A Little Girl's Rare Pet. (C. F. Hodge) 242 The Drummer Drumming. (C. F. Hodge) 243 A Flock of Friendly Sandpipers and Turnstones in Wading. (Herbert K. Job) 258 {xvi} One Little Sandpiper. (R. H. Beebe) 259 The Coot. (C. W. Beebe) 259 The Little Green Heron, the Smallest and Most Abundant Member of his Tribe. (W. P. Hopkins) 260 Half-grown Little Green Herons on Dress Parade. (John M. Schreck) 261 Black-crowned Night Heron Rising from a Morass. (Alfred J. Might) 268 Canada Geese. (Geo. D. Bartlett) 269 The Feather-lined Nest of a Wild Duck 272 Sea Gulls in the Wake of a Garbage Scow Cleansing New York Harbour of Floating Refuse. 273

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CHAPTER I

OUR ROBIN GOODFELLOW AND HIS RELATIONS:

American Robin
Bluebird
Wood Thrush
Wilson's Thrush

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THE AMERICAN ROBIN

Called also: Red-breasted Thrush; Migratory Thrush; Robin Redbreast

It is only when he is a baby that you could guess our robin is really a thrush, for then the dark speckles on his plump little yellowish-white breast are prominent thrush-like markings, which gradually fade, however, as he grows old enough to put on a brick-red vest like his father's.

The European Cock Robin—a bird as familiar to you as our own, no doubt, because it was he who was killed by the Sparrow with the bow and arrow, you well remember, and it was he who covered the poor Babes in the Wood with leaves—is much smaller than our robin, even smaller than a sparrow, and he is not a thrush at all. But this hero of the story books has a red breast, and the English colonists, who settled this country, named our big, cheerful, lusty bird neighbour a robin, simply because his red breast reminded them of the wee little bird at home that they had loved when they were children.

When our American robin comes out of the {6} turquoise blue egg that his devoted mother has warmed into life, he usually finds three or four baby brothers and sisters huddled within the grassy cradle. In April, both parents worked hard to prepare this home for them. Having brought coarse grasses, roots, and a few leaves or weed stalks for the foundation, and pellets of mud in their bills for the inner walls (which they cleverly managed to smooth into a bowl shape without a mason's trowel), and fine grasses for the lining of the nest, they saddled it on to the limb of an old apple tree. Robins prefer low-branching orchard or shade trees near our homes to the tall, straight shafts of the forest. Some have the courage to build among the vines or under the shelter of our piazzas. I know a pair of robins that reared a brood in a little clipped bay