4 WAKE-ROBIN 
is vocal with their cheery call. In excess of joy 
and vivacity, they run, leap, scream, chase each 
other through the air, diving and sweeping among 
the trees with perilous rapidity. 
In that free, fascinating, half-work and half-play 
pursuit, —sugar-making, — a pursuit which still 
lingers in many parts of New York, as in New 
England, — the robin is one’s constant companion. 
When the day is sunny and the ground bare, you 
meet him at all points and hear him at all hours, 
At sunset, on the tops of the tall maples, with look 
heavenward, and in a spirit of utter abandonment, 
he carols his simple strain. And sitting thus amid 
the stark, silent trees, above the wet, cold earth, 
with the chill of winter still in the air, there is no 
fitter or sweeter songster in the whole round year. 
It is in keeping with the scene and the occasion, 
How round and genuine the notes are, and how 
eagerly our ears drink them in! The first utter- 
ance, and the spell of winter is thoroughly broken, 
and the remembrance of it afar off. 
Robin is one of the most native and democratic 
of our birds; he is one of the family, and seems 
much nearer to us than those rare, exotic visitants, 
as the orchard starling or rose-breasted grosbeak, 
with their distant, high-bred ways. Hardy, noisy, 
frolicsome, neighborly, and domestic in his habits, 
strong of wing and bold in spirit, he is the pioneer 
of the thrush family, and well worthy of the finer 
artists whose coming he heralds and in a measure 
prepares us for. 
