AMERICAN ROBIN. 



from six to twenty feet above the ground, in a tree near 

 the house, sometimes under some sheltering projection 

 of the house itself ; it is coarsely constructed of grass, 

 leaves, rootlets, and plant fibres woven into a mud wall 

 or foundation, and lined with finer grasses. Egg a sub- 

 dued green-blue without spots or rarely with fine brown 

 ones. This bird is commonly distributed through east- 

 ern North America as far west as the Rocky Mountains ; 

 it is also found in eastern Mexico and Alaska ; it breeds 

 from Virginia and Kansas to the northern coast of Brit- 

 ish America, and winters from southern Canada (irregu- 

 larly) southward. The birds begin breeding from the 

 last of March to the middle of May, and sometimes two, 

 or even three broods are raised. The Robin is essentially 

 a ground bird, and spends a great deal of his time search- 

 ing the meadow and lawn for worms and grubs. 



The Robin's song is such a perfectly familiar one that 

 it scarcely seems necessary to furnish any records for 

 other than the interest which attaches to the melody. 

 Like all birds this one greatly varies not only in song 

 but in quality of voice ; but every individual singer ad- 

 heres closely to the mechanical rhythm common to the 

 species. The notes are generally delivered in groups of 

 three ; sometimes a sprinkling of two-note groups oc- 

 curs, but this forms no considerable part of the song. 

 Expressed by dots the song should appear thus: . . . 



The form is that of a disconnected warble in rather a 

 narrow compass of voice, and with very slight varia- 

 tion. Some birds sing with an excellent pitch, others 

 ramble along with no particular regard for key or 

 melody. Indeed, it would require pages of explanations 

 and notations to fully demonstrate the truth of such 

 a statement ; but it wbuld be questionable whether such 

 an analysis of individual variation possessed any value 

 relatively with the study of bird music. It is sufficient 

 to say that after an extended acquaintance with the 

 songs of a number of Robins one finds that they are all 

 distinctly different, and that one specimen in about ten 

 is, musically speaking, worth all the others put together I 

 The following is an excellent example of good melody 



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