The Oologist, 



VOL. XVII. NO. 2. ALBION, N. Y., FEBRUARY, 1900. 



Whole No. 163 



The Oologist. 



A Montbly Publication Devoted to 



05L0GY, ORNITHOLOGY AND 

 TAXIDERMY. 



FRANK H. LATTIN, Editor and Publisher, 

 ALBION, N. Y. 



Correspondence and Items of Interest to the 

 student of Birds, their Nests and Eggs, solicited 

 tromall. 



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Y., M aeco^'ttc*.*', 



A Robin Roost. 



"Upborne with indefatigable wings, 

 Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive, 

 The happy isle." 



—Milton. 



On first reading Mr.Torrey's most ex- 

 cellent article upon Robin Roosts, I was 

 agfreeably surprised to find that my town 

 was the place of their nightly gather- 

 ing, and on piecing the meagre descrip- 

 tion that was in the book, together, I 

 soon made up my mind as to where the 

 roost was, also, it then being as late as 

 the first of September, to visit the roost 

 without delay. Accordingly, on a 

 cloudy Monday afternoon (the Uth), I 

 wended my way to the spot. I did not 

 esteem it a particularly ideal spot for 

 Merula migratoria to assemble, not be- 

 ing especially private, or especially 

 adapted as far as I could see. But, then, 

 we are very apt to measure others from 

 our own feeble penny-weight scale.and, 

 no doubt, the traditions of the robins 

 forbade any undue change of location. 

 The robins' motto seems to be, "Let 

 well enough alone." A good one from 

 more than one point of view. "Besides,"" 

 the first robin seemed to say, as he 

 dropped boldly over my head, "we at 

 least are not skulkers, we leave that for 

 our betters." "Let all who hate us 

 come and look upon us." 



I had arrived just after sun down and 

 the robins were coming plentifully when 

 I appeared upon the scene. The roost 

 was a large clump of white oak8,maple8 

 and birches, bounded on the south by a 

 wet meadow, on the east by a small 

 pond and on the north and west by a 

 public road and small undergrowth. It 

 commenced to rain before I had been 

 there long, not a decided rain, but a 

 gentle "insinuating" downfall, which 

 seemed in doubt whether it should con- 

 tinue or not. The robins which were 

 coming, in force, from the first, came 

 faster and faster and the rain and dusk 

 descended more swiftly, until finally, I 



