AMERICAN ROBIN 393 



often heard in cheerless or else rainy weather, so often 

 heard first borne on the cutting March wind or through 

 sleet or rain, as if its coming were premature. 



Oct. 21, 1857. I see a robin eating prinos * berries. 

 Is not the robin the principal berry-eating bird nowa- 

 days ? There must be more about the barberry bushes 

 in Melvin's Preserve than anywhere. 



Nov. 3, 1857. I see on many rocks, etc., the seeds 

 of the barberry, which have been voided by birds, — 

 robins, no doubt, chiefly. How many they must thus 

 scatter over the fields, spreading the barberry far and 

 wide ! That has been their business for a month. 



March 24, 1858. The chip of the ground-bird ^ re- 

 sembles that of a robin, i. e., its expression is the same, 

 only fainter, and reminds me that the robin's peep, 

 which sounds like a note of distress, is also a chi'p^ or 

 call-note to its kind. 



June 3, 1858. They seemed to me wild robins that 

 placed their nests in the spruce up there.^ I noticed 

 one nest. William Emerson, senior, says they do not 

 breed on Staten Island. They do breed at least at Hud- 

 son's Bay. They are certainly a hardy bird, and are at 

 home on this cool mountain-top. 



March 7, 1859. The first note which I heard from 

 the robins, far under the hill, was 8veet sveet, suggesting 

 a certain haste and alarm, and then a rich, hollow, some- 

 what plaintive ^eep or peep-eep-eep, as when in distress 

 with young just flown. When you first see them alighted, 

 they have a haggard, an anxious and hurried, look. 



1 [Black alder, or winterberry, {Ilex verticillata) .] 

 2 That is, song sparrow. ^ [On Mt. Monadnock.] 



