166 ROBIN ROOSTS. 
—which proved to be more populous than 
mine, as was to be expected, perhaps, the 
surrounding country being less generally 
wooded. It was a mile or more from his 
house, which was so situated that he could 
sit upon his piazza in the evening and watch 
the birds streaming past. On the 11th of 
August he counted here 556 robins, of which 
336 passed within five minutes. On the 
28th he counted 1180, of which 456 passed 
within five minutes, — ninety-one a minute! 
On the 2d of September, from a knoll 
nearer-the roost, he counted 1883 entries. 
This gathering, like the one in Melrose, 
was greatly depleted by the middle of Sep- 
tember. ‘Only 109 robins flew over the 
place to-night,’’ my correspondent wrote on 
the 25th, “against 588 September 4th, 838 
August 30th, and 1180 August 28th.”’ Two 
evenings later (September 27th) he went to 
the neighborhood of the roost, and counted 
251 birds, —imstead of 1883 on the 2d. 
Even so late as October 9th, however, the 
wood was not entirely deserted. During the 
last month or so of its occupancy, the num- 
ber of the birds was apparently subject to 
sudden and wide fluctuations, and it seemed 
