THRUSHES. 39 



ful that, whereas in midwinter most birds sleep fourteen or fif- 

 teen hours out of twenty-four, and pass only nine or ten in ex- 

 ercise, in the latter part of June, when the longest days of the 

 year occur, they require little more than half that amount of 

 rest to counterbalance the fatigue of at least sixteen hours' 

 work. I have known Robins to awake and to begin their daily 

 duties before half past three o'clock in the morning, and to be 

 still moving about after eight in the evening ; at that season 

 of the year, moreover, when the male must provide for his 

 young as well as for himself. In the case of many birds, 

 either the male or the female sits on the nest, whilst the other 

 forages, but I have known instances in which the male never 

 sat on his nest, so that all the active duties in the care of his 

 family devolved upon him. 



The Robins continue to come from the South until the first 

 of April, and during the greater part of that month are in- 

 clined to be gregarious, but they finally separate, and many 

 begin to build ; many waiting, however, until May, or even 

 June. As is well known, in the cultivated parts of the country 

 they do not often retire to the woods (except in winter), pre- 

 ferring to remain in open lands, in the neighborhood of man, 

 and about cultivated estates, and are so little wild as to inhabit 

 Boston Common and other equally frequented places. In the 

 country, they pass the summer in villages and such other 

 haunts as I have described, gathering into flocks in the latter 

 part of August, and journeying to warmer climates in Septem- 

 ber or October. Robins are in some parts of the State so 

 plentiful that in May sixty of their nests, containing eggs, 

 were found in an area of fifteen acres. Had Massachusetts 

 then been populated by these Thrushes in that proportion 

 of parent-birds to an acre, it would have contained nearly 

 40,000,000 of them, whereas I suppose that it actually con- 

 tained less than 1,000,000. 



To those who consider Robins either useless or injurious to 

 man the following remarks on the nature of their food may be 

 of interest. In winter and in the early part of spring, they 

 feed chiefly upon berries, such as those of the barberry, poison- 

 ous " ivy," etc., but as soon as the frost is expelled from the 



