robin in my
summer-house knew, if she knew anything, that I had never raised a
finger against her. On the contrary, my hoe in the garden had unearthed
many a worm and slug for her. Still she sees in me only a possible
enemy, and tolerate me with my book or my newspaper near her nest she
will not. Another robin has built her nest in a rosebush that has been
trained to form an arch over the walk that leads to the kitchen door and
only a few yards from it; but whenever we pass and repass she scurries
away with loud, angry protests and keeps it up as long as we are in
sight, so that we do not feel at all complimented by her settling down
so near us. If one's appearance is so alarming, even when he is going to
hoe the garden, why did the intolerant bird set up her household gods so
near? If I keep away her enemies, why will she not be gracious enough to
regard me as her friend? The robin that trusted her brood to the
sheltering vines of the woodshed, and lined her nest with the hair of
our old gray horse--why should she scream, "Murder!" whenever any of us
go to the well a few feet away?

What is the real explanation of the fact that so many of our birds nest
so near our dwellings and yet show such unfriendliness when we come near
them? Their apparent confidence, on the one hand, contradicts their
suspicion on the other. Is it because we have here the workings of a new
instinct which has not yet adjusted itself to the workings of the older
instinct of solicitude for the safety of the nest and young? My own
interpretation is that birds are not drawn near us by any sense of
greater security in our vicinity. It is evident from the start that
there is an initial fear of us to be overcome. How, then, could the
sense of greater safety in our presence arise? Fear and trust do not
spring from the same root. How should the robins and thrushes know that
their enemies--the jays, the crows, and the like--are more afraid of
human beings than they are themselves? Hunted animals pursued by wolves
or hounds will at times take refuge in the haunts of men, not because
they expect human protection, but because they are desperate, and
oblivious to everything save some means of escape. If the hunted deer or
fox rushes into an open shed or a barn door, it is because it is
desperately hard-pressed, and sees and knows nothing but some object or
situation that it may place between itself and its deadly enemy. The
great fear obliterates all minor fe