and nest were not within view from his ash-tree perch, what could
be the meaning of his conduct? Without some specific constraining
motive, no bird in his normal condition was likely to stay in one tree
hour after hour, day after day, and week after week, so that one could
never come in sight of it without seeing him. But even if his nest was
in the immediate neighborhood, the closeness and persistency of his
lookout are still, to my mind, an absolute mystery. Our female bird,
whether she had eggs or offspring, made nothing of absenting herself by
the half hour; but this male hardly gave himself time to eat his
necessary food; indeed, I often wondered how he kept himself alive. Is
such a course of action habitual with male hummers? If so, had our
seemingly widowed or deserted mother a husband, who somewhere, unseen by
us, was standing sentry after the same heroic, self-denying fashion?
These and all similar questions I must leave to more fortunate
observers, or postpone to a future summer. Meantime, my judgment as to
the male ruby-throat's character remains in suspense. It is not plain to
me whether we are to call him the worst or the best of husbands.

ROBIN ROOSTS.

"From every side they hurried in,
Rubbing their sleepy eyes."
KEATS.

Of all the nearly eight hundred species of North American birds, the
robin is without question the one most generally known. Its great
commonness and wide distribution have something to do with this fact,
but can hardly be said to account for it altogether. The red-eyed vireo
has almost as extensive a range, and at least in New England is possibly
more numerous; but except among ornithologists it remains a stranger,
even to country-bred people. The robin owes its universal recognition
partly to its size and perfectly distinctive dress, partly to its early
arrival in the spring, but especially to the nature of its nesting and
feeding habits, which bring it constantly under every one's eye.

It would seem impossible, at this late day, to say anything new about
so familiar a bird; but the robin has one interesting and remarkable
habit, to which there is no allusion in any of our systematic
ornithological treatises, so far as I am aware, although many individual
observers must have taken notice of it. I mean the habit of roosting at
night in large flocks, while still on its breeding grounds, and long
before the close of the breeding season