them. But as he sings
something frightens him; then he cries, 'quick! quick! quick!' and
hurries away in a rather clumsy fashion. If any one could understand the
meaning of all that the Robin says and put it into our words, we should
be able to make a very good dictionary of the language of Birdland."

"I've noticed how different his songs are," said Rap eagerly, "and how
some of his ways are like the Bluebird's, too. We had a Robin's nest
last season in the grape vine over the back door, and I used to watch
them all the time--" and then Rap hesitated in great confusion, for fear
that he had been impolite in stopping the Doctor.

"Tell us about your Robins, my boy; we shall like to hear the story.
Don't look so troubled, but say exactly what you saw them do."

Rap wriggled about a little, then settled himself comfortably with his
chin resting on the top of his crutch, and began: "It was the year that
my leg was hurt. The miller was chopping a tree and it fell the wrong
way on me and squeezed my leg so that it couldn't be mended; so I was
around home all the time. It was a terribly cold day when the Robins
came back, along in the first part of March. If it hadn't been for the
Robins, anybody would have thought it was January. But in January we
don't have big Robin flocks about here, only just twos and threes that
pick round the alder bushes and old honeysuckles for berries. It was
such a cold day that the clothes froze to the line so that mother
couldn't take them off, and we didn't know what to do. Well, we were
looking at them, mother and I, when a big Robin flew out of the pine
trees and hopped along the clothes-line as if he wanted to speak to us.
'Maybe he's hungry,' said mother. 'I guess he is,' said I; 'the ground
is too hard for worms to come out, so he can't get any of them. Can't I
give him some of the dried huckleberries?' We always dry a lot every
summer, so as to have pies in winter. Mother said I might, so I
scattered some on the snow under the pine trees, and we went in the
house and peeped out of the kitchen window. At first the Robins
chattered and talked for a while, looking squint-eyed at the berries,
but then the bird that came on the clothes-line started down and began
to eat."

"How did you know that Robin from all the others?" asked Dodo.

"He had lost the two longest quills out of his right wing, and so he
flew sort of lop-sided," said Rap readily. "As soon as he began the
others came down an