ROBIN ROOSTS. 173 



gether. The flocking of birds for a long 

 journey, or in the winter season, is less mys- 

 terious. In times of danger and distress 

 there is no doubt a feeling of safety in a 

 crowd. But robins cannot be afraid of the 

 dark. Why, then, should not each sleep 

 upon its own feeding grounds, alone, or 

 with a few neighbors for company, instead 

 of flying two or three miles, more or less, 

 twice a day, simply for the sake of passing 

 the night in a general roost? 



Such questions we must perhaps be con- 

 tent to ask without expecting an answer. 

 By nature the robin is strongly gregarious, 

 and though his present mode of existence 

 does not permit him to live during ijie sum- 

 mer in close communities, as marsh wrens 

 do, for example, and some of our swallows, 

 his ancestral passion for society still 

 asserts itself at nightfall. Ten or twelve 

 years ago, when I was bird-gazing in Bos- 

 ton, there were sometimes a hundred robins 

 at once about the Common and Garden, in 

 the time of the vernal migration. By day 

 they were scattered over the lawns; but at 

 sunset they gathered habitually in two or 

 three contiguous trees, not far from the 



