of
April are ruddy and brown,--the new furrow and the leafless trees,--and
these are the tints of its dominant bird.

From my dining-room window I look, or did look, out upon a long stretch
of smooth meadow, and as pretty a spring sight as I ever wish to behold
was this field, sprinkled all over with robins, their red breasts turned
toward the morning sun, or their pert forms sharply outlined against
lingering patches of snow. Every morning for weeks I had those robins
for breakfast; but what they had I never could find out.

After the leaves are out, and gayer colors come into fashion, the robin
takes a back seat. He goes to housekeeping in the old apple-tree, or,
what he likes better, the cherry-tree. A pair reared their domestic
altar (of mud and dry grass) in one of the latter trees, where I saw
much of them. The cock took it upon himself to keep the tree free of all
other robins during cherry time, and its branches were the scene of
some lively tussles every hour in the day. The innocent visitor would
scarcely alight before the jealous cock was upon him; but while he was
thrusting the intruder out at one side, a second would be coming in on
the other. He managed, however, to protect his cherries very well, but
had so little time to eat the fruit himself that we got fully our share.

I have frequently seen the robin courting, and have always been
astonished and amused at the utter coldness and indifference of the
female. The females of every species of bird, however, I believe, have
this in common,--they are absolutely free from coquetry, or any airs and
wiles whatever. In most cases, Nature has given the song and the plumage
to the other sex, and all the embellishing and acting is done by the
male bird.

I am always at home when I see the passenger pigeon. Few spectacles
please me more than to see clouds of these birds sweeping across the
sky, and few sounds are more agreeable to my ear than their lively
piping and calling in the spring woods. They come in such multitudes,
they people the whole air; they cover townships, and make the solitary
places gay as with a festival. The naked woods are suddenly blue as with
fluttering ribbons and scarfs, and vocal as with the voices of children.
Their arrival is always unexpected. We know April will bring the robins
and May the bobolinks, but we do not know that either they or any
other month will bring the passenger pigeon. Sometimes years elapse and
scarcely a flock i