A Trap-loving Robin In a certain vegetable garden, much beset
by sparrows, a wire sparrow trap has been kept continuously baited. It catches almost daily not only sparrows but one particular robin. This courageous bird appears to have become quite well used to temporary imprisonment. It feeds happily, and shows no alarm and just waits happily for the hour of its release. It is difficult to believe that the bird does not know that there is no escape from the cage ; but it is open to argument whether its daily visit is due in greater proportion to greed or courage. My own experience has been less happy. The only occasion on which I ever set a sparrow trap a robin perished in it, for no very apparent cause. The trap was abandoned and has not been set since. I have known robins killed too by wire spring traps set in flower beds for the very destructive mice. Wire cage traps are now set in an increasing number of gardens for the capture of migrant birds and the purpose of ringing them. Some of these have just begun to catch numbers of willow warblers and chiff-chaffs which seem to be much more gullible—or perhaps shorter of food— on their desultory journeys south and west. Whether it is kind or worth while to ring these little creatures whose routes are no longer a mystery, is a question that ought to be answered.
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