re were sometimes a hundred robins at once about the Common and
Garden, in the time of the vernal migration. By day they were scattered
over the lawns; but at sunset they gathered habitually in two or three
contiguous trees, not far from the Frog Pond and the Beacon Street Mall
(I wonder whether the same trees are still in use for the same purpose),
where, after much noise and some singing, they retired to rest,--if
going to sleep in a leafless treetop can be called retiring.

Whatever the origin and reason of this roosting habit, I have no doubt
that it is universal. Middlesex County birds cannot be in any respect
peculiar. Whoever will keep a close eye upon the robins in his
neighborhood, in July and August, will find them at sunset flocking to
some general sleeping-place.

It would be interesting to know how far they travel at such times. The
fact that so many hundreds were to be seen at a point more than a mile
away from the Belmont roost is significant; but I am not aware that any
one has yet made a study of this part of the subject. My own birds
seemed to come, as a rule, by easy stages. In the long narrow valley
east of the roost, where I oftenest watched their approach, they
followed habitually--not invariably--a zigzag route, crossing the meadow
diagonally, and for the most part alighting for a little upon a certain
wooded hill, whence they took a final flight to their nightly haven,
perhaps a quarter of a mile beyond. Farther down the valley, a mile or
more from the roost, birds were to be seen flying toward it, but I found
no place at which a general movement could be observed and large numbers
counted.

As to the size of these nightly gatherings, it seems wisest not to
guess; though, treating the subject in this narrative manner, I have not
scrupled to mention, simply as a part of the story, some of my temporary
surmises. What I am told of the Belmont wood is true also of the one in
Melrose: its shape and situation are such as to make an accurate census
impossible, no matter how many "enumerators" might be employed. It could
be surrounded easily enough, but it would be out of the question to
divide the space among the different men so that no two of them should
count the same birds. At present it can only be said that the robins are
numbered by thousands; in some cases, perhaps, by tens of thousands.

THE PASSING OF THE BIRDS.

"The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter--and the Bi