134 
ROBIN. 
states, from New Hampshire to Carolina, particularly in the 
neighbourhood of our towns; and from the circumstance of 
their leaving, during that season, the country to the north-west 
of the great range of the Alleghany, from Maryland northward, 
it would appear that they not only migrate from north to south, 
but from west to east, to avoid the deep snows that generally 
prevail on these high regions for at last four months in the year. 
The Robin builds a large nest, often on an apple tree, plas- 
ters it in the inside with mud, and lines it with hay or fine grass. 
The female lays five eggs of a beautiful sea green. Their princi- 
pal food is berries, worms and caterpillars. Of the first he pre- 
fers those of the sour gum {Nyssa sylvatica). So fond are 
they of Gum berries, that wherever there is one of these trees 
covered with fruit, and flocks of Robins in the 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 dis- 
appear 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 ex- 
cursion after them, shot thirty dozen. In the midst of such 
devastation, which continued many weeks, and by accounts ex- 
tended from Massachusetts to Maryland, some humane person 
took advantage of a circumstance common to these birds in win- 
ter, to stop the general slaughter. The fruit called poke-berries 
{Phytolacca 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 un- 
