ROBIN ROOSTS. 155 



which, so far as we could judge, had not yet 

 commenced, but that the birds must be fly- 

 ing to and from some nightly resort. The 

 flocks were small, however, and neither of 

 us suspected the full significance of what we 

 had seen. 



On the 19th of July, 1889, the same 

 friend informed me that one of our Cam- 

 bridge ornithologists had found a robin roost 

 in that city, a wood in which great num- 

 bers of birds congregated every night. This 

 led me to keep a sharper eye upon my own 

 robins, whom I had already noticed repeat- 

 ing their previous year's manoeuvres. Every 

 evening, shortly before and after sunset, 

 they were to be seen flying, now singly, now 

 by twos and threes, or even by the half 

 dozen, evidently on their way to some ren- 

 dezvous. I was suspicious of a rather dis- 

 tant hill - top covered with pine - trees ; but 

 before I could make it convenient to visit the 

 place at the proper hour, I discovered, quite 

 unexpectedly, that the roost was close by the 

 very road up and down which I had been 

 walking ; an isolated piece of swampy wood, 

 a few acres in extent, mostly a dense growth 

 of gray birches and swamp white oaks, but 



