), and his distress was so evident that the window was always
opened at once to let him go out.

I am sorry to have to confess that robins are most vindictive towards
each other! Bobbie maintained a very angry warfare with a hated rival
out-of-doors, in fact his chief occupation in life seemed to be watching
for his enemy. He might often be seen sitting under a small palm in a
pot on the window-ledge, and whilst looking the picture of gentle
innocence he was, I fear, cherishing envy, hatred, and malice in his
naughty little heart, for, all at once, there would be a grand
fluttering and pecking at the window whilst the two little furies, one
inside and the other out, expended their strength in harmless warfare
which only ceased when they were too exhausted to do more, and then
followed on both sides a triumphant song of defiance or victory.

I must now weave into this biography the life-history of a poor robin
which, I suppose, must have been caught in a trap, for it had lost the
lower mandible of its beak, and had only a little knob remaining of the
upper mandible. It haunted the windows, and looked so hungry and
miserable from its inability to pick up its food, that I thought it
kindest to coax it into a cage where it could be fed with suitable food.
By placing mealworms in a cage I at last induced it to hop in, and for
five months it had a very happy life indoors, feeding on soaked brown
bread and all the insect diet I could secure for it. When the cage was
cleaned each morning Bobbie was let out, and would take a bath in a
glass dish, and then fly to the top of the looking-glass, where he would
often remain all day unless we were quick enough to secure his cage-door
when he went in to feed. By the middle of May I thought caterpillars
would be plentiful enough for him to find his own living, so one day he
was released, but unhappily Robert the Second was close by, and the
moment he saw the invalid in his cage on the lawn with the door open, he
rushed in and savagely fought the poor defenceless bird. Before we could
interfere he drove our pet out of his cage, and terrible was the battle
that went on; the beakless bird was driven far away, and I was quite
unhappy about his fate, for he was now beyond my loving care, and I
never expected to see him again. Two months passed by, and I only once
caught a glimpse of the invalid, but at last he came just as before to
the window, looking thin and ill, with ruffled feathers, an