8 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 
about the adobe wall, though none inside. Per- 
haps the weather was too warm for a feather bed! 
—or was this frivolous lady bird thinking so 
much of fashion and adornment she could spare 
no time on homely comfort ? 
Longfellow says : 
‘‘'There are no birds in last year’s nest,’’ 
but on a brace in an old cow shed I know of, there 
is a robin’s nest that has been used for several 
years. A layer of new material has been added 
to the old structure each time, so that it is now 
eight inches high and bids fair soon to rival the 
fourteen story flat houses of New York. A re- 
markable case is given in the “ Naturalist” of a 
robin that had no “ bump of locality,” and distri- 
buted its building material impartially over nearly 
thirty feet of the outer cornice of a house. 
You may look for robins almost anywhere, but 
they usually prefer dry open land, or the edge of 
woodland, being averse to the secluded life of 
their relatives, the thrushes, who build in the for- 
est. Those I find in the edge of the woods are 
much shyer than those living about the house, 
probably from the same reason that robins and 
others of our most friendly Eastern birds are wild 
and suspicious in the uninhabited districts of the 
West — or, who will say there are no recluses 
among birds as well as men ? 
The flight and song of the robin are character- 
istic. The flight is rapid, clear cut, and straight. 
