68 BIRDS OF THE GARDEN AND ORCHARD. 



he sings on the wing, not while hovering over one spot, 

 but while flying from one tree to another. Such musical 

 paroxysms are rare in his case, and seem to be caused by 

 some momentary exultation. 



The Golden Robin rears but one brood of young in 

 New England, and his cheerful notes are discontinued 

 soon after they have left their nest. The song of the 

 old bird seems, after this event, hardly necessary as a 

 call-note to the offspring, who keep up an incessant chirp- 

 ing from the moment of leaving their nest until they 

 are able to accompany their parents to the woods. They 

 probably retire to the forest for security, and vary their 

 subsistence by searching for insects that occupy a wilder 

 locality. It is remarkable that after an absence and 

 silence of two or three weeks from the flight of their 

 young the Golden Robins suddenly make their appearance 

 once again for a few days, uttering the same merry notes 

 with which they announced their arrival in May. But 

 this renewal of their song is not continued many days. 

 We seldom see them after the middle of August. They 

 leave for their winter quarters early in autumn. 



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THE MEADOW-LARK. 



This bird is no longer, as formerly, a Lark. Originally 

 an Alauda, he has since been an Oriolus, an Icterus, a 

 Cacicus, and a Sturnus. He has shuffled off all his for- 

 mer identities, and is now a Sturnella magna. I will not 

 enter into a calculation of the metamorphoses he may yet 

 undergo. By the magic charm of some inventor of another 

 new nomenclature ; by the ingenuity of some Kant in 



