Notes from Field and Study 



353 



out-of-the-way fence-rows. Once, impaled 

 on the thorns of a blackthorn, I found a 

 Junco and a Tree Sparrow. Both birds' 

 necks were dislocated. I returned there 

 three successive days hoping to see the 

 Shrike, but was unsuccessful. Again, in 

 April, I came upon a shrew and a large 

 beetle impaled on the barbs of a wire 

 fence. I lingered near for a long time, but 

 the Shrike did not appear. Whether he 

 saw me and would not come near, or had 

 passed on in his migration, I do not 

 know. — Elizabeth C. Cox, Buckingham, 

 Pa. 



A Robin Winter Colony 



The winter of 1904-05 was delightfully 

 open. There was a long, mild fall. The 

 hills were clad with autumn tints almost 

 the winter through. Twenty miles south 

 of Saint Louis, in Jefferson County, Mis- 

 souri, are still some hills clothed with the 

 forests that were there when De Soto made 

 his first voyage of discovery down the 

 Father of Waters. These are the usual 

 native trees, oak, elm, ash, hickory — a 

 half dozen varieties, — and fringes of 

 cedars. There is here an all-the-year-round 

 resort locally famous as 'The Cedars,' 

 named from its environing trees. This is 

 some three miles back from the river, and 

 near a stream called Glaize Creek. Along 

 Glaize Creek are broad bottoms, with 

 broken hills for border. Farther south 

 the hills rise to a very considerable height. 

 One of the large farms here, with both the 

 bottoms and the upland, is that which 

 has been owned for many years by 

 Joseph G. Marriott. East from the farm- 

 house there was a mile of cedar-covered 

 hill, and it was there that a pretty sight 

 took place that lasted for months, and 

 interested 'The Cedars' resorters as well 

 as local people. 



As usual, the birds gathered that fall 

 for their long flight south. Day after 

 day the great flights went overhead, until 

 it grew late. One day we noticed many 

 Robins about. They were fine, big, fat, 

 saucy fellows, and, in place of passing on, 

 they seemed to increase in numbers from 

 week to week till there were thousands. 



We began to wonder when they would 

 move on, as the other birds, but they did 

 not go. Gradually their daily routine 

 took on a certain regularity which ad- 

 mitted of study and daily observation. 



Their day seemed to be about as follows: 

 When the first rays of sunlight gilded the 

 tops of the trees in which they roosted, 

 they rose as if with the sound of a signal 

 gun, and poured from the tops of the trees 

 literally as though they were a swarm of 

 bees. The air was black with them. 



They hovered like a dense, black cloud 

 for a moment, then mounted high in the 

 air, and flew straight west. In ten minutes 

 there was not a Robin to be seen. Evi- 

 dently they had some feeding-place far to 

 the west. No matter what the weather, — 

 and I watched them from November till 

 the following April, — they went through 

 the same maneuver. Doubtless a natu- 

 ralist would have known the average flight 

 the Robin makes for his food-supply, and 

 could have estimated where they spent 

 their days. Certainly, however, they 

 scattered as they flew away, so that there 

 were not many in a place where they 

 alighted, or there would have been some 

 mention made of them in our Saint Louis 

 papers. As the days grew shorter, they 

 timed their exodus to suit the hour. If 

 it were cloudy, they left at broad day. 



The only time any of them stayed about 

 was during one or two very heavy wind- 

 and snow-storms which marred an other- 

 wise perfect winter. At four o'clock in 

 the afternoon, not one Robin was to be 

 seen. At ten minutes past four, the first 

 big, fat, red-breasted fellows catapulted 

 overhead. Until sunset, they passed 

 steadily and surely, and just as the last 

 rays of the sun gilded the tree-tops, the 

 last few hundred flew chattering over, and 

 disappeared in the black cedar tops. 



During the entire winter, I saw but one 

 crippled Robin, and he appeared to be 

 fat, and able to pick a living from along 

 the fence rows. A careful study of their 

 sleeping quarters showed no evidence that 

 they were ever disturbed at night. There 

 were no signs of any kind of woodland 

 tragedy under the trees. No one ever 



