I let the family out by a side window, instead of the bird-board window, and they evaded their loving and affectionate relative for a little while. But he found them at last; and went for his wife, while the children cheeped forlornly among the pansies in the border. We never saw her again, poor, plucky little soul; and one of the youngsters dragged a broken wing along the path next day, explaining to me, pitifully, that he couldn’t possibly get up to the bird-board now, neither could he find mother anywhere. I took him in, and tried to save his life—but it was no use. With all our knowledge and skill and discoveries and training, what clumsy, inadequate creatures we are in comparison with a little mother bird! * * * * * Less harrowing was the incident of a robin who, on one occasion, came inside, in order to get more than his share of provender if possible, when he was suddenly startled by the dog running into the room. Instead of flying through the window that was open, he made for a closed one, banging his head with such force against the glass that the blow stunned him, and he fell senseless to the ground. I picked him up, and tried all the restoratives I could think of, a drop of water on his beak, a cold splash on his head, but to no purpose; he lay, just a tiny handful of beautiful feathers, in my hand; so light, so helpless, so altogether pathetic—it hurt me badly to gaze at the small mite that only the minute before had been talking to me, and cheeking me, and liking me (yes, I am sure he did), and I unable now to do a thing to bring back the gaiety and life and sparkle to the poor still body. I felt sure he was dead, yet to give him every chance, I placed him in a nest of soft flannel out on the window-ledge; the day was warm, but there was a breeze that might perhaps revive him. And as a last offering—one does so try to do all one can!—I put a tempting piece of suet near his inanimate beak. And how unnatural it seemed to see that suet remain untouched in his vicinity! I took my work and sat where I could see if he so much as stirred a claw. But for a quarter of an hour there wasn’t the slightest sign of movement, except when the wind gently ruffled his feathers—and how exquisite they were, the blue so unlike the ordinary blue, the red much more red than the London robins, and the bronze-brown so glinting. At last I decided it was useless to watch any longer, for his eyelids had never so much as flickered. I was folding up my work, when a big yellow tit flew on to the window ledge, hopped over inquiringly to the suet, and started to sample it. In an instant up jumped the corpse, and with an angry “Chit! chit!” hurled himself at the interloper; and the last I saw of him was chasing the yellow tit all across the garden. Don’t ask me to explain; I am only telling you what happened under my own eyes. * * * * *