The Robin. 171 



While many of the singing birds become silent as the 

 cares of home and family increase, the robin is one of the 

 mostpersistent of songsters, beginning the day with a carol 

 before sunrise and closing with a chant after sunset, from 

 his spring appearance to his late autumn departure. He 

 even cheerily sings for us while boldly collecting his share 

 of the garden fruit, evidently believing that his music is 

 a fair equivalent for his luxurious living, and that his 

 destruction of insect pests earlier in the season made the 

 fruit a reality. The robin is to the summer what the 

 chickadee is to the year round — the ever-present exponent 

 of cheerful melody. On any of our dreariest rainy morn- 

 ings of late March after robin has come, his tuneful carols 

 more than compensate the bird lover for venturing beyond 

 his cozy study to hear the "good mornings" of his inti- 

 mates. 



As migrants the robins are in the van of that vast army 

 which annually travels northward at the appearance of 

 spring, the bluebirds alone sometimes preceding them, I 

 have recorded their arrival at Virden, Illinois, as early as 

 January 30, 1887, and as late as February 26, 1892, the 

 advancement of the season and the locality causing the 

 great variation in the dates from different sections. The 

 robins that come to us at the close of winter seem to pre- 

 fer the tops of the tall elms and maples, acting as if they 

 doubted the advisability of remaining. We usually note 

 them first in the morning or evening, when their sharp, 

 impatient, nervous squeaks inform us that the first robins 

 have come. They generally utter several of the loud 

 squeaks, and quickly follow them by two or three similar 

 notes uttered in a lower, somewhat muffled tone, pro- 

 nounced more under the breath than the introductory 

 squeaks. Lowell has added to our appreciation of the 

 "doubting bluebird's notes," but far more expressive of 

 doubt are the actions of one of the first squeaking robins 

 who finds himself separated from his fellows and calls to 

 them from the leafless summit of the tall elm or maple. 

 Those first louder exclamations may seem to indicate his 

 resolution to remain even alone, in the face of the purpled- 

 black snow-bank crouching over the western horizon, but 

 those muttered, faltering expressions of his real feelings 



