Yes, robin _père_ can be a villain; he also can be the extreme reverse. Like the majority of the rest of us, he shows to the most amiable advantage when there is no rival to distract public admiration. So long as he is the centre, as well as the beginning and the end, of the bird universe, he is sweetness itself. No other bird is so keenly alive to all my comings and goings. It doesn’t matter how fully occupied he may be with the settlement of every other bird’s affairs, I have but to go up the garden with fork or spade or broom, and before I have turned half-a-dozen clods, or pulled out a handful of weeds, I am conscious of a soft streak through the air, though I hardly see it; there he sits on a low branch of a currant bush close to my hand, or stands motionless on an edging stone at my very feet. If I take no notice of him, in all probability he starts a Whisper Song to call attention to himself. Have you ever heard this? It suggests nothing so much as elf-land music; I know no song exactly like it. You seem to hear a bird warbling most delightfully, but it is far, far away. You raise your eyes, and scan the trees around, but no singing bird can you discover; you decide it must be farther off—but what a haunting charm there is about it. Then it ceases. Mr. Robin is hoping that you have understood what he has been saying. But no, the obtuse human just goes on weeding the path as before; so the Whisper Song starts again. This time you think it resembles a very mellow musical box shut up in some distant room. Suddenly you see him, singing straight at you, so close to your hand that it gives you quite an uncanny feeling for the moment; and you wonder: Who is he—what is he—that he should be saying all this to me, obviously to me, and to no one else but me? Robin doesn’t encourage you in daydreams, however, he means business; and once he sees that he has secured your undivided attention, he discards the Whisper Song and comes to the point. Down on to the path he drops, seizes an unwary worm that your energy has brought to light; then tosses it over scornfully and flirts a contemptuous tail, which says as plainly as any tale that was ever told, “Is _that_ the best worm you can offer a gentleman? Pouf!” He eats it nevertheless. And so he follows me round the place; I never garden alone. If at first I cannot see him, I whistle a quiet call; invariably I hear the Whisper Song in response, and there he is—waiting, watching, missing nothing, with his tiny throat feathers vibrating and quivering as he strives to let me into bird-land secrets, and tells me lots and lots of wonderful things that as yet I am too dull-witted to understand. * * * * * Then there are the blackbirds—for individuality they are hard to beat; though I admit they are always reproving someone or something, with their “Chutter, chut, chut!”