ARRIVAL OF THE BIRDS. 65 
grossbeaks, and scarlet tanagers, all larger than he, 
are tarrying in Georgia and Alabama. There is 
nothing in the size or color or form of the birds that 
makes this difference ; it is doubtless in the blood. 
I have kept a careful memorandum of the arrival 
of these feathered voyagers (this was during the 
spring of 1892), and know almost to a certainty 
the day, and sometimes the hour, when they cast 
anchor in this port. The winter had been unusually 
severe, and yet the migration began as early as the 
twenty-second of February, when the first meadow- 
larks put in appearance, and sent their wavering 
shafts of song across the frost-bound fields. They 
had left only on the last day of December, but had 
apparently remained away as long as they could. 
On the same day the killdeer plovers also arrived, 
making their presence known by their wailing cry. 
On the twenty-third I heard the Q-g-0-0-ka-/-e-e-e of 
the red-winged blackbirds, and on the morning of 
the twenty-fourth the first robins dropped from the 
sky after a “flying trip’’ in the night from some 
more southern stopping-place; but the weather 
was too cold for them to sing. Yet the song-spar- 
rows and meadow-larks defied the cold with their 
cheerful melody. While the robin is a very gay 
and lavish songster, he wants favorable weather for 
his vocal rehearsals, and a “cold snap” will easily 
discourage him. He is evidently somewhat of a fair- 
weather minstrel. It was on February twenty- 
eighth, a pleasant day. that I caught the first strain 
of robin melody. 
