154 ROBIN ROOSTS. 



to say anything new about so familiar a bird ; 

 but the robin has one interesting and re- 

 markable habit, to which there is no allusion 

 in any of our systematic ornithological trea- 

 tises, so far as I am aware, although many 

 individual observers must have taken notice 

 of it. I mean the habit of roosting at night 

 in large flocks, while still on its breeding 

 grounds, and long before the close of the 

 breeding season. 1 



Toward the end of summer, two years ago, 

 I saw what looked like a daily passage back 

 and forth of small companies of robins. A 

 friend, living in another town, had noticed 

 similar occurrences, and more than once we 

 discussed the subject; agreeing that such 

 movements were probably not connected in 

 any way with the grand southward migration, 



1 Mr. William Brewster has been aware of this habit 

 for twenty-five years, but, like myself, has never seen it 

 mentioned in print. He devotes to it a paper in The Auk 

 for October, 1890, to which I am happy to refer readers 

 who may wish a more thorough discussion of the mat- 

 ter than I have been able to give. My own paper was 

 printed at the same time, in The Atlantic Monthly, and 

 had been accepted by the editor before I knew of Mr. 

 Brewster's intention to write. References to a roost in 

 Belmont, Mass., discovered by Mr. Brewster six years be- 

 fore, are frequent in the following pages. 



