82 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
the notes of other birds in order to attract them 
within their reach. Why then have I never 
heard them sing in the winter? I have seen 
seven or eight of them the past winter quite 
near. The birds which it imitated, if it imi¬ 
tated any this morning, were the catbird and 
the nuthatch, neither of which, probably, would 
it catch. The first is not here to catch. Hear¬ 
ing a peep I looked up and saw three or four 
birds passing which suddenly descended and 
settled on this oak top. They were robins, 
but the shrike instantly hid himself behind a 
bough, and in half a minute flew off to a wal¬ 
nut and alighted, as usual, on its very topmost 
twig, apparently afraid of its visitors. The 
robins kept their ground, one alighting on the 
very point which the shrike vacated. Is not 
this, then, probably the spring note or pairing 
song of the shrike ? The first note which I 
heard from the robins far under the hill was 
46 sveet sveet ,” suggesting a certain haste and 
alarm, and then a rich, hollow, somewhat plain¬ 
tive peep or peep-eep-eep , as when in distress 
with young just flown. When you first see 
them alighted, they have a haggard, an anxious 
and hurried, look. 
The mystery of the life of plants is kindred 
with that of our own lives, and the physiologist 
must not presume to explain their growth ac- 
