ral concert
of Summer.

"When Robin Redbreast sings,
We think on budding Springs."

The Robin is not one of our most charming songsters, yet its carol is
sweet, hearty and melodious. Its principal song is in the morning
before sunrise, when it mounts the top of some tall tree, and with its
wonderful power of song, announces the coming of day. When educated, it
imitates the sounds of various birds, and even sings tunes. It must be
amusing to hear it pipe out so solemn a strain as Old Hundred.

It has no remarkable habits. It shows considerable courage and anxiety
for its young, and is a pattern of propriety when keeping house and
concerned with the care of its offspring. Two broods are often reared
out of the same nest. In the Fall these birds become restless and
wandering, often congregating in large flocks, when, being quite fat,
they are much esteemed as food.

The Robin's nest is sometimes built in a corner of the porch, but
oftener it is saddled on the horizontal limb of an orchard tree. It is
so large and poorly concealed that any boy can find it, yet it is seldom
molested. The Robin is not a skillful architect. The masonry of its nest
is rough and the material coarse, being composed largely of leaves or
old grass, cemented with mud. The eggs number four to six and are
greenish blue in color.

An observer tells the following story of this domestic favorite:

"For the last three years a Robin has nested on a projecting pillar that
supports the front piazza. In the Spring of the first year she built her
nest on the top of the pillar--a rude affair--it was probably her first
effort. The same season she made her second nest in the forks of an Oak,
which took her only a few hours to complete.

[Continued page 59.]

[Illustration: AMERICAN ROBIN.]

[Illustration: MEXICAN MOT MOT.]

THE AMERICAN ROBIN. (Continued)

"She reared three broods that season; for the third family she returned
to the piazza, and repaired the first nest. The following Spring she
came again to the piazza, but selected another pillar for the site of
her domicile, the construction of which was a decided improvement upon
the first. For the next nest she returned to the Oak and raised a second
story on the old one of the previous year, but making it much more
symmetrical than the one beneath. The present season her first dwelling
was as before, erected on a pillar of the piazza--as fine a structure as
I ever saw this