splay of sociability, but
nothing new; for in winter, as every observer knows, birds not of a
feather flock together. The Ipswich sparrow, a very retiring but not
peculiarly timid creature, I have now seen at Nahant in every one of our
seven colder months,--from October to April,--though it is
unquestionably rare upon the Massachusetts coast between the fall and
spring migrations. Besides the species already named, my monthly list
included the following: herring gull, great black-backed gull, ruffed
grouse, hairy woodpecker, flicker, goldfinch, tree sparrow, snowbird,
blue jay, crow, shrike, white-bellied nuthatch (only two or three
birds), golden-crowned kinglet, and one small hawk.[6]

[6] To this list my ornithological comrade before mentioned added seven
species, namely: white-winged scoter, barred owl, cowbird, purple finch,
white-winged crossbill, fox sparrow, and winter wren. Between us, as far
as land birds went, we did pretty well.

The only birds that sang during the month--unless we include the
red-bellied nuthatches, whose frequent quaint twitterings should,
perhaps, come under this head--were the chickadees and a single robin.
The former I have down as uttering their sweet phoebe whistle--which I
take to be certainly their song, as distinguished from all their
multifarious calls--on seven of the thirty-one days. They were more
tuneful in January, and still more so in February; so that the titmouse,
as becomes a creature so full of good humor and high spirits, may fairly
be said to sing all winter long. The robin's music was a pleasure quite
unexpected. I was out on Sunday, the 30th, for a few minutes' stroll
before breakfast, when the obliging stranger (I had not seen a robin for
a fortnight, and did not see another for nearly two months) broke into
song from a hill-top covered with pitch-pines. He was in excellent
voice, and sang again and again. The morning invited music,--warm and
cloudless, like an unusually fine morning in early April.

For an entire week, indeed, the weather had seemed to be trying to outdo
itself. I remember in particular the day before Christmas. I rose long
before daylight, crossed the Mystic River marshes as the dawn was
beginning to break, and shortly after sunrise was on my way down the
South Shore. Leaving the cars at Cohasset, I sauntered over the
Jerusalem Road to Nantasket, spent a little while on the beach, and
brought up at North Cohasset, where I was attracted by a
lon