rd was sitting on it
still.

"'That will never do,' said my mother; 'the first cat that strays by
will take the poor thing.' While I was looking at it mother went in the
house and came back with a little tin pail. She picked some branches and
tied them round it so that the tin didn't show. 'Now,' she said to the
Robin, the same as if it understood our language, 'get up and let me see
if I can't better you a bit.' Then the bird left the nest, making a
great fuss, and crying 'quick! quick!' as if all the woods were afire.

"'Oh, mother!' I cried, 'the eggs will get cold. What are you taking the
nest away for? It was better to chance the cats.'

"'Don't you fret, sonny,' said she; 'your mammy has some common sense if
she don't trampoose all over creation watching birds.' And before I
understood what she was doing she had put the nest in the top of the
tin pail and hung it on a hook under the shed roof. 'Now,' she said,
'Mrs. Robin, try how you like that!'

"I watched and after a few minutes first one Robin flew under the shed
and then the other, and the next thing one was sitting on the pail-nest
as nice as you please!"

"Did the birds hatch?" asked Olive, Nat, and Dodo, almost in the same
breath.

"Yes, they hatched all right; and then I noticed something funny. The
backs and breasts of the little birds were almost naked when they were
hatched, and their eyes closed tight; but when the feathers came they
were spotted on their backs and breasts and not plain like their
parents. Do you know," added Rap after a little pause, "that when
Bluebirds are little, their backs and breasts are speckled too, though
afterward they moult out plain? So there is something alike about
Bluebirds and Robins that even a boy can see."

"You are quite right," said the Doctor; "the 'something alike, that even
a boy can see,' is one of the things that shows these birds to be
cousins, as I told you. Every one of the Silver-tongued Family is
spotted when it gets its first feathers. It is strange," he added in an
undertone, as if talking to himself, "how long it took some of us to
find out what any bright boy can see."

The American Robin--Remember This

Length ten inches.

Upper parts slate color with a tinge of brown.

Head black on top and sides, with white spots around the eyes. Tail
black with white spots on the tips of some feathers.

Under parts brick-red, except the black and white streaked throat and
under the tail.

A C