wo
o'clock in the morning to see the birds disperse. I entered the wood
just before the assemblage was due (this was on the 9th of July), and
took a sheltered position on the eastern edge, where, as the robins flew
by me, or alighted temporarily in the trees just across the brook, they
would have the sunlight upon their breasts. Here, as often as one came
sufficiently near and in a sufficiently favorable light, I noted whether
it was an adult, or a streaked, spotted bird of the present season. As a
matter of course, the number concerning which this point could be
positively determined under such conditions was very small,--only
fifty-seven altogether. Of these, forty-nine were surely birds of the
present summer, and only eight unmistakable adult males. If any adult
females came in, they passed among the unidentified and uncounted.[16] I
was glad I had made the test. As a kind-hearted cynic (I confess to
being nothing worse than this), I was relieved to find my misanthropic,
or, to speak more exactly, my misornithic, notions ill founded. As for
the sprinkling of adult males, they may have been, as a "friend and
fellow woodlander" suggests, birds which, for one reason or another, had
taken up with the detestable opinion that "marriage is a failure."

[16] A week later, my correspondent reported a similar state of things
at the Belmont roost. "A very large proportion of the birds are
spotted-breasted young of the year, but occasionally I have detected an
adult male." He examined the birds at near range, and at rest, after
they had come into the roost in the earlier part of the evening.

During the month of July, 1890, I made frequent counts of the entries at
the eastern end of the roost, thinking thus to ascertain in a general
way the rate at which its population increased. On the whole, the growth
proved to be fairly steady, in spite of some mysterious fluctuations, as
will be seen by the following table:--

July 3 247
" 5 383
" 6 356
" 10 765
" 12 970
" 14 1120
" 16 1064
" 17 1333
" 19 1584
" 22 1520
" 23 1453
" 27 2314

After July 6th all the enumerations were made with the help of another
man, though we stood side by side, and covered no more ground than I had
hitherto attempted to compass alone. The figures of the 27th were far in
excess of any obtained in 1889, and for a day I was disposed to take
seriousl