Page:Wild nature won by kindness (IA wildnaturewonbyk00brigiala).pdf/196

 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