2 



WiDMANN, A Winter Robin Roost in Missou. 



X Auk 



half a mile east of it, where the rain and overflow leave a deep 

 and long slough. The marsh dries up slowly during the summer 

 and in dry seasons the slough may even become nearly or entirely 

 dry in fall. 



The higher levels of the marsh are cultivated and, when visiting 

 the ground in October, we may find parts of it sown to wheat 

 while on others corn has been shocked and some of the marsh 

 grass has been made into hay and put up in large stacks. 



King's Lake is fringed by a nice growth of trees among which 

 we recognize pinoaks, elms, soft maples, pecans, persimmons, 

 honey locusts, willows and in the fore ground several fine specimens 

 of red haw, covered with scarlet fruit, which together with the 

 adjoining farm buildings make a most picturesque landscape. 



The lower parts of the marsh, with the exception of the slough 

 itself, are overgrown with reeds' five feet high, bending over in all 

 directions. These reeds are matted into a regular thicket which 

 is not easily penetrated. In the fall the reeds are dry and yellow, 

 some cinnamon and even dark chestnut brown. 



It is in these reeds that the Robin finds a safe retreat for the 

 night, sheltered equally well from wind and cold, rain and snow, 

 and comparatively safe from prowling enemies. During the day 

 nothing betrays the roost. Not a Robin is seen in the neighbor- 

 hood all forenoon and for several hours of the afternoon. An 

 hour or two before sunset a few may arrive and stay in the trees 

 along King's Lake, but nobody would suspect anything extra- 

 ordinary until half an hour before sunset when the great influx 

 begins. 



The new arrivals no more fly to the trees but alight on the 

 ground, some in the wheat field, some in the meadows, some on 

 the corn and hay stacks, but the majority flies directly into the 

 reeds, while the others shift from place to place until they, too, 

 disappear. They do not come in troops like Blackbirds, but the 

 whole air seems for a while to be filled with them, and standing 

 in the marsh, one can easily see that they come from all points of 

 the compass, all aiming toward a certain tract of reeds, a piece 



' Known in botanical works as fresh-water card-grass {Sfartina cynosuroides 

 Willd.). 



