Table of Contents
Introduction xiii
Preface 1
Preface to Fourth Edition 4
Note to This Edition 7
1 My Robins 9
Methods of trapping and individual marking
The robin's curiosity and alleged covering of dead bodies
Cock and hen look alike
The aviaries
Summarized life history and its detailed sequence in one wood.
2 Song 23
Song period
Individual variation
Bird song partly inaudible
Are birds happy?
Singing confined to the territory
Female song in birds
Song saves fights
The Bohemian crusade
The aviary robins keep wild ones away
Battle music
Singing for mates
Singing when alarmed
Song distinctive
Mimicry
Talking birds
Is bird song inherited or acquired?
The significance of song in late summer
3 The Red Breast 36
The robin's names
Dawn watching
Description and meaning of the robin's display
The hen also displays
A scarlet sweater
Threat display in other birds
Types of attitude found in bird display and their suggested origin and evolution
Colour emphasizes display and acts as a recognition mark
Display is conventional
Display 'stimulates'.
4 Fighting 47
The territory owner usually wins
Food trespassing
Boundary disputes
Instinct superior to reason
Seasonal variations
Sex differences
Alleged parricide and infanticide
Deplorable Christmas card
Claiming new territory and ejection of an owner
Fighting usually bloodless, occasionally fierce
Its decline in captivity
How birds employ their spare time
Fighting a reflection.
5 The Formation of Pairs 59
Time of pair
Formation in British song-birds
Sexual selection
Description of pair-formation
Much fighting and singing in first phase, and adjustment only gradual
Sex recognition in the robin and other birds
Later phases of pair -formation
Individual recognition of mate
Separation of pair in cold weather
Desertion
Bigamy
Re-mating
Life-pairing.
6 Courtship 71
Courtship used in three senses
The robin's pre-coitional display extremely slight
Display may stimulate egg-laying
Courtship after the eggs are laid
Courtship-feeding
Its emotional value
'Maleness' and 'femaleness' in birds
Juvenile behaviour in courtship
Billing-Adoption of juvenile behaviour by injured birds
Courtship-feeding outside birds.
7 Nest, Eggs, and Young 81
Breeding season
Nesting sites, normal and curious
Competition with other species
Multiple nesting
Turner's domed nest closed with oak leaves
Clutch size, and effect of removing or adding eggs
Value of clutch size
Reason for coloration of eggs
Rejection of cuckoo's egg
Incubation
Feeding of young
Recognition of fledgling by parent and parent by fledgling, and comparison with gulls
Age at which independent
Further broods
Dangers to eggs and young.
8 Migration 103
Most males are resident, some may migrate; most females migrate, some are resident
Time of arrival of females
Winter sex ratio
British robins abroad
Migration within Britain
Bastwick in the Scillies
Migration of the robin in other parts of Europe and the Atlantic islands
Sex and age differences in migration of birds
Sex hormones and migration
Singing in winter quarters
Fighting on board ship
Redstart changing into robin
Swallows hibernating
Distances shifted by adult and juvenile robins.
9 Age 119
The age to which birds can live in captivity and in the wild
The percentage of robins dying each year and the expectation of life as calculated from the ringing returns
Comparison with human life-tables
Number of young raised per pair per year.
10 Food, Feeding, and Being Fed Upon 131
The moral Bunyan Normal food
Beneficial to man
Feeding methods
Pellets
Desire for fat
Effect of hard winters
Robins make cats vomit
Enemies
Parasites
As food and medicine for man
Huge annual mortality
Control of population.
11 The Significance of Territory 142
Shape of robin's territory
Early references to Territory
Value in pair-formation Discussion of optimum spacing, food territories, attacks on food competitors, size of territory and factors determining it, and equal spacing of birds which do not feed in their territories
The autumn territory of the robin
Sexual behaviour in autumn
Male behaviour by female robin
Autumn territory and migration.
12 Adventures With a Stuffed Robin 158
Abnormal behaviour throws light on the normal
Manner of experiments
Robins attack a stuffed specimen
Individual differences in fierceness and way of attack
Waning of fierceness with repetition
Alleged cannibalism
Experiments with parts of specimens
Courtship of the specimen
Attacking empty air
The robin's world.
13 Recognition 170
Attacks on other species
Recognition a bad term
Lorenz's views on signals
Robin's attacking behaviour partially but not completely divisible into three parts each with its own signal
Lorenz's views probably over-simplified
Attack on the mate
Attack only in the territory
Essential to consider the internal state
Bird behaviour complex.
14 Tameness 181
Tameness of British, wildness of Continental, robin
How to tame a robin
The robin's memory
Singing on seeing food
Striking human beings
Posturing at a man
Tameness in captive birds
Is recognition of its species inherited?
Birds fixated on human beings and on a celluloid ball
Fixation riot irrevocable
Parallels with insects and mankind.
15 A Digression Upon Instinct 191
Words as explanations and as gods
Popular misusage
Definitions should not be based on particular theories, or unobservables or non-existent entities
The observable characteristics of instinctive behaviour
Instincts not completely inherited
Difficulties in describing the appetitive and emotional behaviour of birds
Instinct in use before its definitions
Need for a new terminology.
16 Forest Robots 202
Distribution in woods, summer and winter
Origin of tameness
Date of laying
Clutch in May Incubation
Weight of nestlings
Feeding visits
Losses of nestlings
Follows digging Animals
Annual censuses
Average density
Territory Woods and gardens compared.
Epilogue 221
Postscript 1 In David Lack's Footsteps David Harper 223
Postscript 2 The Life of 'The Life of the Robin' Peter Lack 235
References and Notes 249
Index 277
