Evening star., 1945-04-12
This and That
Bu Charles E. TrdceUell.

How they treated the friendly robins
in the good old days is told by Vir-
ginia correspondent.
Five hundred feet in front of the
house" he says ION either side of the
road, lie two holly trees. and patriarchs
of their race are they.
Height, around so feet; trunks, near
two feet in diameter; branches, so thick
one cannot see above five feet through
them; berries, so heavy each year they
look like cherries or even plums from
below; several legends circulate about
them.
The robins didn't do it this year, but
last year hordes of them appeared in
these trees in the early part of March.
These flocks swarmed from one holly
to the other and back again, evidently
tasting of the fruit of each, and exer-
cising their wings for eventual flight
elsewhere For none of them stayed to
nest on the place.
II have spoken to several OF the old
timers who have farmed this homestead
as far back as 1900. Each of them has
told me of the times when they, with
SCNC1 al OIllSl SOAlOA 10, VSAAt III CAiS oEAAAi6
underneath the hollies with shotguns.
and hiding beneath the branches came
out and shot up the slope of the outer
branches to kill several robins at each
try.
They would then retreat toward the
tree trunk out of sight. while the flock
flew to the other tree, Whereupon the
other crew would repeat the perform
ance, and the robins would fly back to
the first tree, and have the same stunt
pulled on them there.
"It is said that the robins, under this
pressure, merely few from tree to tree,
a distance of not more than $50 feet.
The exterminators of this axis asso-
ciatlon of the birds only quit when they
had two or three bushel baskets or
hampers filled with plump robins.
They were plump, then, in the spring,
according to the narrators and did
anything taste as good as robin pie?
No, sir, according to these farmers.
And when the law was passed pro-
hibiting killing of these migratory birds,
the ld-timers state that after the law,
there were fewer birds came to the
hollies each spring!
Believe it or not, the focks were
smaller, according to these reliable wit
neSSeS
And I trust their word-no doubt the
robins then dispersed to the cities, where
they undoubtedly had sustained their
greatest losses heretofore, to feed at
their great natural habitat-the grass
lawns so fondly nurtured by the urban
dWeller
TT looks as though man is the great
est enemy the bird has, and that the
city resident, being the most numerous,
so far as concentration goes, is taking
a long step forward when he practices
and breaches protection, as you have
done, for one of our natural resources of
inestimable value"
Most people have never seen holly
tree of the size described.
Such trees are not only beautiful, but
are beloved of most birds.
It was surely a shame that such Wof1-
derful friends of birds as the two trees
described should ever have been used
to their destruction. e..
No doubt the robins thought of the
two trees as protection, and could not
conceive any better sanctuary
Yet it would not speak highly of their
brain power, that they simply flew back
and forth from one tree to another.
Evidently the fact that the hunters
hid in the great trees fooled the birds.
It is not difficult for man to fool either
birds, fish or animals, but often his
success is not always the credit to HIM
self which he thinks 1t is.
The law protecting our bird life was
one of the great acts of Congress, one
which has paid dividends many Million
fold over the years. In these days of
more gardens than ever before, the birds
more than pay their way, because all
species. including seed eaters, use insects
for food for their babies. X