ROBIN ROOSTS. 13 
gether. The flocking of birds for a long 
journey, or in the winter season, is less mys- 
terious. In times of danger and distress 
there is no doubt a feeling of safety in a 
crowd. But robins cannot be afraid of the 
dark. Why, then, should not each sleep 
upon its own feeding grounds, alone, or 
with a few neighbors for company, instead 
of flying two or three miles, more or less, 
twice a day, simply for the sake of passing 
the night in a general roost? 
Such questions we must perhaps be con- 
tent to ask without expecting an answer. 
By nature the robin is strongly gregarious, 
and though his present mode of existence 
does not permit him to live during the sum- 
mer in close communities, — as marsh wrens 
do, for example, and some of our swallows, 
— his ancestral passion for society still 
asserts itself at nightfall. Ten or twelve 
years ago, when I was bird-gazing in Bos- 
ton, there were sometimes a hundred robins 
at once about the Common and Garden, in 
the time of the vernal migration. By day 
they were scattered over the lawns; but at 
sunset they gathered habitually in two or 
three contiguous trees, not far from the 
