M o nthly B ull etin 5 



Robin Redbreast. 



A beautiful incident was called to my mind recently. My physician, a 

 member of the Audubon Society and a great lover of birds, and I were 

 discussing the differences between the American and the English robin. 

 The robin found in England is smaller and more graceful than those in 

 this country, and far prettier. He is the real "Robin Redbreast." 



Our conversation, leading from one thing to another, awoke memories 

 of a Christmas which I spent in England eleven years ago. I, with other 

 members of my family, was attending morning worship in the old Episcopal 

 Church in the village of Them, Oxen. The vicar had announced the hymn, 

 and, as the organ pealed forth, a little robin, from no one knows where, 

 alighted above the canopy and, without any preliminaries, threw up his head 

 and poured forth his song as though his throat would burst. He seemed 

 to join with the rest of us in the praises of Him whom we had come to 

 worship. As the last tones of the organ died away, his silvery notes still 

 echoed as he took flight through a half-open window. 



Mrs. Agnes Arnold. 

 57 Bartlett Crescent, Brookline, Mass. 



BIRDS OF EARLY MARCH. 



Looking back now on the winter that is past, we find that the hard, 

 bitter cold and deep snow have taken their toll of bird life. Many birds 

 have died in the North, but no report of such casualties has come from the 

 South. Since February came in some of the birds that survived most of the 

 winter here and others that returned too soon have perished of cold or 

 starvation. The little auk, Holboell's grebe, herring gull, black duck, 

 mourning dove, ruffed grouse, ring-necked pheasant, bob-white, barred owl, 

 screech owl, flicker, meadowlark, blue jay, starling, white-breasted nuthatch, 

 English sparrow, chickadee, mockingbird, robin and bluebird are among 

 those found dead. Many starlings and meadowlarks were picked up frozen, 

 some evidently starved, others plump and well fed, some with food in their 

 stomachs. This is similar to the unusual experiences of the hard winter of 

 1903-04, when a few well-nourished birds were found frozen. 



The woodpeckers have had a hard time except where people fed them, 

 as the trees were frozen so hard that they could pierce the wood with diffi- 

 culty, and they have sought insect food in old timbers in the interiors of 

 sheds and in other sheltered places. Dead woodpeckers and flickers have 

 been reported from New Hampshire. In Northern and Western Massa- 

 chusetts and in Maine and New Hampshire the great northern pileated 

 woodpecker has hammered and torn the dead trees of the forest in search 

 of food. 



The disappearance of many birds during the severe weather in Decern- 



