134 Field and Forest Rambles. 



time, as cultivation increases, it may so happen that there 

 will be ample supplies of winter berries, and this hardy bird 

 may be induced to spend the winter in these latitudes, 

 seeing that it does not go very far south in winter.* The 

 boldness it displays during the breeding season, when its 

 haunts are invaded by the squirrel, crow, and grackle, its fami- 

 liar habits, late departure, and early arrival, — all testify to 

 its innate strength and stamina, which will always be advan- 

 tageous in any struggle for existence. After feeding on the 

 fruits and berries, it assembles in flocks towards the middle 

 of September, at which season it is very fat and plump. 

 A few then disappear ; but the majority still linger on until 

 sharp frosts in October compel them to beat a retreat to 

 the central and southern States of the Union. It is a pretty 

 sight to watch a flock start on their pilgrimage ; they then 

 fly high and keep close together, with that characteristic 

 mode of flight peculiar more or less to the thrush family. 



I know no better prophet of the coming warm showers of 

 April and May than the robin as he sits on the snake fence 

 uttering his familiar chuckee chuckee, repeated in quick suc- 

 cession, just as the English blackbird often presages a change 

 of weather, f 



The song of the robin, like that of many more members of 

 its family (the famous mavis excepted), is not varied, and 

 shows a sort of incompleteness, as if the bird had lost notes 

 and was trying its utmost to recollect them — a sort of 

 laborious effort to catch up lost ones to which he now and 



* It is said to have braved the Atlantic, and been found in Central 

 Europe ; and knowing its powers of endurance and pluck, I well believe 

 it would survive where many larger birds would perish. 



f I dare say some of my readers may be familiar with the blackbird's 

 well-known chatterings on such occasions ; it is not, however, always 

 easy to obtain a view of the little sable foreteller when thus engaged, as 

 it chooses a dense shrubbery, where, frisking from branch to branch with 

 upright tail and wings slightly raised, it keeps uttering a metallic tinkling 

 call somewhat similar to the words «' Klink, klink," frequently repeated . 



