ARRIVAL OP THE BIRDS. 65 



grossbeaks, and scarlet tanagers, all larger than he, 

 are tarrying in Georgia and Alabama. There is 

 nothing in the size or color or form of the birds that 

 makes this difference ; it is doubtless in the blood. 



I have kept a careful memorandum of the arrival 

 of these feathered voyagers (this was during the 

 spring of 1892), and know almost to a certainty 

 the day, and sometimes the hour, when they cast 

 anchor in this port. The winter had been unusually 

 severe, and yet the migration began as early as the 

 twenty-second of February, when the first meadow- 

 larks put in appearance, and sent their wavering 

 shafts of song across the frost-bound fields. They 

 had left only on the last day of December, but had 

 apparently remained away as long as they could. 

 On the same day the killdeer plovers also arrived, 

 making their presence known by their wailing cry. 

 On the twenty-third I heard the Q-q-o-o-ka-l-e-e-e of 

 the red-winged blackbirds, and on the morning of 

 the twenty- fourth the first robins dropped from the 

 sky after a " flying trip " in the night from some 

 more southern stopping-place ; but the weather 

 was too cold for them to sing. Yet the song-spar- 

 rows and meadow-larks defied the cold with their 

 cheerful melody. While the robin is a very gay 

 and lavish songster, he wants favorable weather for 

 his vocal rehearsals, and a " cold snap " will easily 

 discourage him. He is evidently somewhat of a fair- 

 weather minstrel. It was on February twenty- 

 eighth, a pleasant day- that I caught the first strain 

 of robin melody. 



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