4 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 
fly to the woods for their nooning earlier and 
earlier as the weather gets warmer. 
You will not have to go far to find your first 
bird. 
1 
THE ROBIN. 
NExtT to the crow, the robin is probably our best 
known bird ; but as a few of his city friends have 
never had the good fortune to meet him, and as he 
is to be our “ unit of measure,” it behooves us to 
consider him well. He is, as every one knows, a 
domestic bird, with a marked bias for society. 
Everything about him bespeaks the self-respecting 
American citizen. He thinks it no liberty to dine 
in your front yard, or build his house in a crotch of 
your piazza, with the help of the string you have 
inadvertently left within reach. Accordingly, he 
fares well, and keeps fat on cherries and straw- 
berries if the supply of fish-worms runs low. Mr. 
Robin has one nervous mannerism — he jerks his 
tail briskly when excited. But he is not always 
looking for food as the woodpeckers appear to be, 
nor flitting about with nervous restlessness like the 
warblers, and has, on the whole, a calm, dignified 
air. With time to meditate when he chooses, like 
other sturdy, well-fed people, his reflections usually 
take a cheerful turn; and when he lapses into a 
poetical mood, as he often does at sunrise and 
