The special policeman of the group and its environs was a robin, who lived in a two-story nest under the eaves of the hay-barn. This bird, after the manner of his family, constituted himself regulator and dictator. He lived in peace with the ordinary residents, but took it upon himself to see that no stranger showed his head near the spot. He chased the crow blackbird who happened to fly over on business of his own, and by calls for help brought the whole robin population about the ears of the intruder. He also headed the mob of redbreasts that descended one morning upon a meek-looking half-grown kitten, who chanced to cast its innocent eyes upon a robin baby under the trees on another side of the house. The youngster could fly with ease, but he preferred to stay on the ground, for he quickly returned there when I put him on a low branch; and when a robin makes up his mind, arguments are useless. The same robin bullied the red-headed woodpecker, and flew at the kingbird when he brought his young family up to taste the raspberries. One visitor there was, however, to the fence and the locusts whom Master Robin did not molest. When a prolonged, incisive "pu-eep" in the martial and inspiring tone of the great-crested fly-catcher broke the silence, I observed that the robin always had plenty of his own business to attend to. I admire this beautiful bird, perhaps because he is the inveterate enemy of the house sparrow, and almost the only one who actually keeps that little bully in his proper place. There is to me something pleasing in the bearing of the great-crest, who, though of few inches, carries himself in a manner worthy of an eagle. Even the play of a pair of them on the tops of the tallest dead trees in the woods, though merry enough with loud joyful cries, has a certain dignity and circumspection about it uncommon in so small a bird. A pair of great-crests were frequent visitors to the fence, where they were usually very quiet. But one day as the male flew over from the woods, his call was answered by a loud-voiced canary, whose cage hung all summer outside the kitchen door. The stranger alighted on a tree, apparently astonished to be challenged, but he replied at once. The canary, who was out of sight on the other side of the cottage, answered, and the droll conversation was kept up for some time; the woods bird turning his head this way and that, eager to see his social neighbor, but unable, of course, to do so.