168 ROBIN ROOSTS. 
On the following evening I stood beside the 
ice-pond and saw one hundred and ninety- 
two robins enter the wood. The flight had 
begun before my arrival, and was not en- 
tirely over when I came away. Evidently 
several hundreds of the birds were already 
passing their: nights in company. In my 
ignorance, I was surprised at the early date; 
but when I communicated my discovery to 
the Belmont observer, he replied at once that 
he had noticed a movement of the same kind 
on the 11th of June. The birds, about a 
dozen, were seen passing his house. 
Thinking over the matter, I began to ask 
myself —though I hesitate about making 
such a confession — whether it might not be 
the adult males who thus unseasonably went 
off to bed in a crowd, leaving their mates to 
eare for eggs and little ones. At this very 
moment, as it happened, I was watching with 
lively sympathy the incessant activities of a 
female humming-bird, who appeared to be 
bringing up a family (two very hungry 
nestlings), with no husband to lift a finger 
for her assistance; and the sight, as I fear, 
put me into a cynical mood. Male robins 
were probably like males in general, — lov- 
