time, pluming himself,
singing, and at times investigating the contents of a little cupboard,
where he sometimes discovered a cake which was much to his taste, on
which he feasted without any leave asked, though truly it would have
been readily given to such a pleasant little visitor. He soon showed
such entire confidence in me that he would perch on the book I was
reading, and alight on my lap for crumbs even when many people were in
the room.

When we had to leave this country home I wished that dear Bobbie could
have been packed up to go elsewhere with our other possessions, but
since this could not be, let us hope he still inhabits the old garden
and cheers other home-dwellers with his confiding manners and morning
and evening songs of praise.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

ROBERT THE SECOND.

After slight intimacies with various robins who were visitors to the
conservatory and found their way in and out at the open windows, I was
led to special friendship with a brown-coated young bird I used often to
see close to the open French window where I was sitting. He was coaxed
into the room by mealworms being thrown to him until he made himself
quite at home indoors. By the time he had attained his red breast the
weather had become too cold for open windows, but Bobbie would sit on
the ledge and wait till I let him in, and then he would be my happy
little companion for the whole morning, flitting all about the room,
along the corridor, into the hall--in fact, he was to be found all over
the house; but when hungry he returned to me as his best friend, because
I was the provider of his delightsome mealworms. It was always amusing
to visitors to see me feed my small fowl! He would be on the alert to
see where his prey was to be found, and he would hunt for it
perseveringly if it happened to fall out of sight. He was often to be
seen perched on the Californian mouse's cage, and I wondered what could
be the attraction; at last I discovered that he coveted mousie's brown
biscuits, and after that he was allowed one for his own use, kept in a
special corner, where a cup of water was also provided for his small
requirements.

However tame wild birds may seem there will be times when all at once a
sort of intense longing to get out seems to possess them. When this was
the case Bobbie would fly backwards and forwards uttering his plaintive
cry (one of the six kinds of notes by which robins express their
feelings