A BIRD-LOVERS APRIL. 229 



new species arrived at my station for the entire 

 fortnight. 



Robins sang sparingly from the beginning, 

 and became perceptibly more musical on the 

 8th, with signs of mating and jealousy ; but 

 the real robin carnival did not open till the 

 morning of the 14th. Then the change was 

 wonderful. Some of the birds were flying this 

 way and that, high in air, two or three to- 

 gether ; others chased each other about nearer 

 the ground ; some were screaming, some hiss- 

 ing, and more singing. So sudden was the out- 

 break and so great the commotion that I was 

 persuaded there must have been an arrival of 

 females in the night. 



I have heard it objected against these 

 thrushes, whose extreme commonness renders 

 them less highly esteemed than they would 

 otherwise be, that they find their voices too 

 early in the morning. But I am not myself 

 prepared to second the criticism. They are 

 not often at their matins, I think, until the 

 eastern sky begins to flush, and it is not quite 

 certain to my mind that they are wrong in as- 

 suming that daylight makes daytime. I have 

 questioned before now whether our own custom 

 of sitting up for five or six hours after sunset, 

 and then lying abed two or three hours after 

 sunrise, may not have come down to us from 



