"She reared three broods that season; for the third family she returned
to the piazza, and repaired the first nest. The following Spring she
came again to the piazza, but selected another pillar for the site of
her domicile, the construction of which was a decided improvement upon
the first. For the next nest she returned to the Oak and raised a second
story on the old one of the previous year, but making it much more
symmetrical than the one beneath. The present season her first dwelling
was as before, erected on a pillar of the piazza--as fine a structure as
I ever saw this species build. When this brood was fledged she again
repaired to the Oak, and reared a third story on the old domicile, using
the moss before mentioned, making a very elaborate affair, and finally
finishing up by festooning it with long sprays of moss. This bird and
her mate were quite tame. I fed them with whortleberries, which they
seemed to relish, and they would come almost to my feet to get them.
The amount of food which the young robin is capable of absorbing is
enormous. A couple of vigorous, half-grown birds have been fed, and in
twelve hours devoured ravenously, sixty-eight earth worms, weighing
thirty-four pennyweight, or forty-one per cent more than their own
weight. A man at this rate should eat about seventy pounds of flesh per
day, and drink five or six gallons of water.
The following poem by the good Quaker poet Whittier is sweet because
_he_ wrote it, interesting because it recites an old legend which
incidentally explains the color of the robin's breast, and unique
because it is one of the few poems about our American bird.