Who Really Killed Cock Robin?
Facts in Chapter 4: Clues
p. 74: The new cock robin was not singing... because he was preoccupied with a female who must've come north on the last weave of the migration. He wondered why she was so late. Had something held her up in the south? It seemed that one solution only led to more mysteries.
Tony is making good observations.
p. 75: Rob consults with the Fish and Wildlife Service Research Station in Maryland now called the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and the Scripps Institution, now called the Scripps Research Institute.
p. 86: Saddle is 9 days old and doing fine: making short flights and balancing. He was maturing on schedule, except for his voice.
Tony is basing this on Margaret Morse Nice's Song Sparrow Development Chart, and making reasonable conclusions.
p. 87: He sleeps with his mouth open, and there's nothing in Margaret Nice's chart to explain it.
Mary Alice doesn't know how birds pant, but Tony does and explains it. When songbirds first hatch and are unfeathered, they need warmth from an outside source--in nature, their mother; in the story, a lightbulb. But now Saddle has many feathers and keeps his own temperature up, and the lightbulb makes him too hot.
p. 89: Saddle can yell! He may live after all.
Although a bird with no voice can survive, it would be at a serious disadvantage with other birds. The robin distress call isn't learned but instinctive, and Saddle made the call when he wanted to be out of Tony's grip. That proved he wasn't mute.
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