“cheer up! cheer up!” sings robin redbreast every morning. “listen to me! listen to me! oh, excuse me! i see, i see a feast!” and down he hops, hops, hops to the spot where he sees a nice fat worm wiggling out of the ground.

perhaps it is an earthworm, perhaps it is a worse worm; but if it is an earthworm, you will have fun watching robin.

he seizes the worm with his bill, then braces his feet against the earth, and pulls and pulls with all his might.

out comes the worm with such a jerk that robin almost topples over; but he doesn’t. he either eats the worm or flies away with it to his hungry little birdies.

down he drops it into one of the wide open mouths in the nest.

do you know how many earthworms one baby robin can eat in one day?

a man who loves birds once counted the worms that one pair of robins fed to their little ones, and found that each little robin ate sixty-eight earthworms in one day.

sixty-eight earthworms if placed end to end would measure about fourteen feet. just think[75] what busy lives mr. and mrs. robin redbreast live, and how they love their little ones.

robins eat many other kinds of worms besides earthworms, and they eat insects, too. they work hard to feed their babies, and in this way they do a wonderful thing for us, for the insects they eat would destroy the plants which we need.

you know bread really grows on tall grasses called wheat and rye, and oatmeal grows on a grass called oats.

there are millions of insects which like wheat and rye and oats as much as we do, and they would eat up all the crops if it were not for the birds that eat the insects. now you can see why we call the birds our friends.