EASTERN ROBIN 33 



will appear in the course of ten or twelve minutes, this usually happening when 

 the weather is stormy. 



Other references to accounts of the roosting of robins are: A. J. 

 Stover (1912), Arthur It. Abel (1914), William Youngworth (1929), 

 Mrs. J. Frederick Clarke (1930), Joseph C. Howell (1940), and Brad- 

 ford Torrey (1892). 



Tilford Moore writes to us that when some heavy bombing planes 

 were flying over in formation, a robin in his backyard became very 

 much excited, as it would if a cat were about, flitting from one perch 

 to another, with much flicking of wings and tail and worried calls. 



Voice. — The robin is at his best when he is singing. In the long 

 choruses at morning and evening, and frequently for shorter periods 

 during the day, he devotes himself to song, and as he stands motion- 

 less on a high perch, his head thrown back a little, whistling his happy 

 phrases, his nerves relax, it seems, and a thrushlike calm comes over 

 him: for the time, he seems at peace. Cheerily, cheery is a favorite 

 rendering of his song, aptly suggesting by sound and meaning the 

 joyous tenor of the phrases, and the liquid quality of the notes. The 

 song lacks the artistry and poetic quality of the Hylocichlae, and the 

 gentle charm of the bluebird's voice, but it is nevertheless an earn- 

 est, pleasing expression of happy contentment. It is generally a long- 

 continued performance made up of paired phrases of two or three 

 syllables each, often alternating up and down in pitch, given with per- 

 fect regularity at the rate of about two phrases per second. Close 

 attention, however, will detect, after every few phrases, an almost 

 imperceptible break in the beat, so that an uninterrupted run of a 

 dozen phrases is rare. Frequently in the course of a long period of 

 singing the bird pauses for a longer interval, perhaps for a second's 

 duration, and then continues his song. Often, too, we hear a singing 

 robin raise the pitch of his phrases higher and higher as the song 

 goes on, apparently striving to attain a note beyond his range, until 

 his voice breaks into hissing phrases without tone quality, the acme 

 of his attempt. This peculiarity is characteristic also of the hermit 

 thrush's song. 



The robin's song is so characteristic, with its regular beat, its full 

 round tone, and the robust quality of cheerfulness that pervades it, 

 that we recognize it instantly. Yet as we listen to the robins in our 

 dooryards singing day after day, we soon learn to distinguish some 

 of the birds by slight differences in their songs; by a peculiar note 

 recurring in a phrase, by the number of phrases which compose a 

 group, or by a tempo slower or more rapid than the normal rate of 

 the song. Also we notice sometimes that a bird will take a stand to 

 sing his evening chorus on a branch, or perhaps the roof of our house, 

 each night on the same perch, and if we are able to mark down this 



