32 THE ROBIN. 



neighbourhood, the sportsman need only take his stand near 

 it, load, take aim, and fire ; one flock succeeding another, with 

 little interruption, almost the whole day : by this method, 

 prodigious slaughter has been made among them with little 

 fatigue. When berries fail, they disperse themselves over the 

 fields, and along the fences, in search of worms and other 

 insects. Sometimes they will disappear for a week or two, 

 and return again in greater numbers than before ; at which 

 time the cities pour out their sportsmen by scores, and the 

 markets are plentifully supplied with them at a cheap rate. In 

 January 1807, two young men, in one excursion after them, 

 shot thirty dozen. In the midst of such devastation, which 

 continued many weeks, and, by accounts, extended from Mas- 

 sachusetts to Maryland, some humane person took advantage 

 of a circumstance common to these birds in winter, to stop 

 the general slaughter. The fruit called poke-berries (Phyto- 

 lacca decandra, Linn.) is a favourite repast with the robin, 

 after they are mellowed by the frost. The juice of the berries 

 is of a beautiful crimson, and they are eaten in such quantities 

 by these birds, that their whole stomachs are strongly tinged 

 with the same red colour. A paragraph appeared in the public 

 papers, intimating that, from the great quantities of these 

 berries which the robins had fed on, they had become unwhole- 

 some, and even dangerous food, and that several persons had 

 suffered by eating of them. The strange appearance of the 

 bowels of the birds seemed to corroborate this account. The 

 demand for and use of them ceased almost instantly ; and 

 motives of self-preservation produced at once what all the 

 pleadings of humanity could not effect* When fat, they are 

 in considerable esteem for the table, and probably not inferior 



* Governor Drayton, in his " View of South Carolina," p. 86, observes, 

 that " the robins in winter devour the berries of the bead tree (Melia 

 azedarach) in such large quantities, that, after eating of them, they are 

 observed to fall down, and are readily taken. This is ascribed more to 

 distension from abundant eating, than from any deleterious qualities of 

 the plant." The fact, however, is, that they are literally choked, many 

 of the berries beinsr too lars;e to be swallowed. 



