166 ROBIN ROOSTS. 



which proved to be more populous than 

 mine, as was to be expected, perhaps, the 

 surrounding country being less generally 

 wooded. It was a mile or more from his 

 house, which was so situated that he could 

 sit upon his piazza in the evening and watch 

 the birds streaming past. On the llth of 

 August he counted here 556 robins, of which 

 336 passed within five minutes. On the 

 28th he counted 1180, of which 456 passed 

 within five minutes, ninety-one a minute ! 

 On the 2d of September, from a knoll 

 nearer the roost, he counted 1883 entries. 



This gathering, like the one in Melrose, 

 was greatly depleted by the middle of Sep- 

 tember. "Only 109 robins flew over the 

 place to-night," my correspondent wrote on 

 the 25th, "against 538 September 4th, 838 

 August 30th, and 1180 August 28th." Two 

 evenings later (September 27th) he went to 

 the neighborhood of the roost, and counted 

 251 birds, instead of 1883 on the 2d. 

 Even so late as October 9th, however, the 

 wood was not entirely deserted. During the 

 last month or so of its occupancy, the num- 

 ber of the birds was apparently subject to 

 sudden and wide fluctuations, and it seemed 



