390 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



through my nose. No, there it is again, — a robin ; and 

 we have put the winter so much further behind us. 

 What mate does he call to in these deserted fields ? It 

 is, as it were, a scared note as he whisks by, followed 

 by the familiar but still anxious toot^ toot, toot. He does 

 not sing as yet. There were one or two more fine bird- 

 like tinkling sounds I could not trace home, not to be 

 referred to my breathing. 



March 21, 1853. How suddenly the newly arrived 

 birds are dispersed over the whole town ! How numer- 

 ous they must be ! Robins are now quite abundant, fly- 

 ing in flocks. One after another flits away before you 

 from the trees, somewhat like grasshoppers in the 

 grass, uttering their notes faintly, — ventriloquizing, 

 in fact. I hear one meditating a bar to be sung anon, 

 which sounds a quarter of a mile off, though he is within 

 two rods. However, they do not yet get to melody. 

 I thank the red-wing for a little bustle and commotion 

 which he makes, trying to people the fields again. 



March 31, 1853. The robins sing at the very earli- 

 est dawn. I wake with their note ringing in my ear. 



April 4, 1853. Last night, a sugaring of snow, which 

 goes off in an hour or two in the rain. Rains all day, 

 . . . The robins sang this morning, nevertheless, and 

 now more than ever hop about boldly in the garden in 

 the rain, with full, broad, light cow-colored breasts. 



April 6, 1853. The robin is the singer at present, 

 such is its power and universality, being found both in 

 garden and wood. Morning and evening it does not 

 fail, perched on some elm or the like, and in rainy 

 days it is one long morning or evening. The song spar- 



