ll hours. At sunset, on the tops of the
tall maples, with look heavenward, and in a spirit of utter
abandonment, he carols his simple strain. And sitting thus amid the
stark, silent trees, above the wet, cold earth, with the chill of
winter still in the air, there is no fitter or sweeter songster in the
whole round year. It is in keeping with the scene and the occasion.
How round and genuine the notes are, and how eagerly our ears drink
them in! The first utterance, and the spell of winter is thoroughly
broken, and the remembrance of it afar off.

Robin is one of the most native and democratic of our birds; He is
one of the family, and seems much nearer to us than those rare, exotic
visitants, as the orchard starling or rose-breasted grosbeak, with
their distant, high-bred ways. Hardy, noisy, frolicsome, neighborly,
and domestic in his habits, strong of wing and bold in spirit, he is
the pioneer of the thrush family, and well worthy of the finer artists
whose coming he heralds and in a measure prepares us for.

I could wish Robin less native and plebeian in one respect,--the
building of his nest. Its coarse material and rough masonry are
creditable neither to his skill as a workman nor to his taste as an
artist. I am the more forcibly reminded of his deficiency in this
respect from observing yonder hummingbird's nest, which is a marvel of
fitness and adaptation, a proper setting for this winged gem,--the
body of it composed of a white, felt-like substance, probably the down
of some plant or the wool of some worm, and toned down in keeping with
the branch on which it sits by minute tree-lichens, woven together by
threads as fine and grail as gossamer. From Robin's good looks and
musical turn, we might reasonably predict a domicile of him as clean
and handsome a nest as the king-bird's, whose harsh jingle, compared
with Robin's evening melody, is as the clatter of pots and kettles
beside the tone of a flute. I love his note and ways better even than
those of the orchard starling or the Baltimore oriole; yet his nest,
compared with theirs, is a half-subterranean hut contrasted with a
Roman villa. There is something courtly and poetical in a pensile
nest. Next to a castle in the air is a dwelling suspended to the
slender branch of a tall tree, swayed and rocked forever by the wind.
Why need wings be afraid of falling? Why build only where boys can
climb? After all, we must set it down to the account of Robin's
democratic