4 WAKE-ROBIN 



is vocal with their cheery call. In excess of joy 

 and vivacity, they run, leap, scream, chase each 

 other through the air, diving and sweeping among 

 the trees with perilous rapidity. 



In that free, fascinating, half- work and half-play 

 pursuit, — sugar-making, — a pursuit which still 

 lingers in many parts of New York, as in New 

 England, — the robin is one's constant companion. 

 When the day is sunny and the ground bare, you 

 meet him at all points and hear him at all hours. 

 At sunset, on the tops of the tall maples, with look 

 heavenward, and in a spirit of utter abandonment, 

 he carols his simple strain. And sitting thus amid 

 the stark, silent trees, above the wet, cold earth, 

 with the chill of winter still in the air, there is no 

 fitter or sweeter songster in the whole round year. 

 It is in keeping with the scene and the occasion. 

 How round and genuine the notes are, and how 

 eagerly our ears drink them in! The first utter- 

 ance, and the spell of winter is thoroughly broken, 

 and the remembrance of it afar off. 



Kobin is one of the most native and democratic 

 of our birds; he is one of the family, and seems 

 much nearer to us than those rare, exotic visitants, 

 as the orchard starling or rose-breasted grosbeak, 

 with their distant, high-bred ways. Hardy, noisy, 

 frolicsome, neighborly, and domestic in his habits, 

 strong of wing and bold in spirit, he is the pioneer 

 of the thrush family, and well worthy of the finer 

 artists whose coming he heralds and in a measure 

 prepares us for. 



