Identifier: ourbirdfriendsco00burb (find matches)
Title: Our bird friends; containing many things young folks ought to know--and likewise grown-ups
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Burba, George Francis, 1865-
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: New York, The Outing publishing company

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f thrushes. All of them have soft bills,with nostrils covered by a membrane, at the base of the bill, andnearly all thrushes can sing. The robin builds a substantial nest. It first lays a foundationof mud, generally in the forks of limbs, and then it lays somecoarse sticks or straws and places mud over them, and thenstrings or fibers, all the time plastering the nest with soft mudthat holds like cement. The inside of the nest is filled with soft grasses and threadsand hairs and feathers, and when it is completed it forms aperfectly round cup. A robin has no compass to work with,and no plans to go by, but man himself could not build a nestmore scientifically round. The bird is able to get the nestround by getting on the inside as she builds and turninground and round and thus shaping it with her breast. A robin lays four eggs, of a pale-blue color, without spots uponthem. Birds whose nests are exposed lay colored eggs, andbirds that conceal their nests lay white eggs, or eggs with only
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a S J THE ROBIN 31 splotches upon them. If a robin laid white eggs, dont youunderstand that they would be easily seen when the bird is notupon the nest? But with those beautifully tinted, soft blueeggs—they are not so noticeable as white ones would be. Aflicker doesnt have to waste any Easter dyes upon her eggs,because they are inside of a tree, but a robin goes into the egg-coloring business. During the summer the robins are quite tame. They havelearned that people do not harm them at that time of the year.But as soon at the weather gets cold the robins become wild andgo to the fields, and prepare for their southern journey. People used to hunt robins and shoot them and eat them, andthat made the robin shy in the fall and winter. There are stillthousands and thousands of them shot for food, especially inthe South—and a robin tastes pretty good, too, to a fellow whodoes not object to eating his friends. People who talk about the rollicking life of a bird do notknow much about bird

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