168 ROBIN ROOSTS. 



On the following evening I stood beside the 

 ice-pond and saw one hundred and ninety- 

 two robins enter the wood. The flight had 

 begun before my arrival, and was not en- 

 tirely over when I came away. Evidently 

 several hundreds of the birds were already 

 passing their nights in company. In my 

 ignorance, I was surprised at the early date ; 

 but when I communicated my discovery to 

 the Belmont observer, he replied at once that 

 he had noticed a movement of the same kind 

 on the llth of June. The birds, about a 

 dozen, were seen passing his house. 



Thinking over the matter, I began to ask 

 myself though I hesitate about making 

 such a confession whether it might not be 

 the adult males who thus unseasonably went 

 off to bed in a crowd, leaving their mates to 

 care for eggs and little ones. At this very 

 moment, as it happened, I was watching with 

 lively sympathy the incessant activities of a 

 female humming-bird, who appeared to be 

 bringing up a family (two very hungry 

 nestlings), with no husband to lift a finger 

 for her assistance ; and the sight, as I fear, 

 put me into a cynical mood. Male robins 

 were probably like males in general, lov- 



