The robin (motacilla rubecola) associated with malignants is not, perhaps, in the place where it generally would be sought; but sad truths might be told of it too. It might be called pugnacious, jealous, selfish, quarrelsome, did I not respect ancient feelings, and long- established sentiments. A favorite by commiseration, it seeks an asylum with us; by supplication and importunity it becomes a partaker of our bounty in a season of severity and want; and its seeming humbleness and necessities obtain our pity: but it slights and forgets our kindnesses the moment it can provide for itself, and is away to its woods and its shades. Yet it has some little coaxing ways, and such fearless confidence, that it wins our regard; and its late autumnal song, in evening’s dusky hour, as a monologue is pleasing, and redeems much of its character. The universality of this bird in all places, and almost at all hours, is very remarkable; and perhaps there are few spots so lonely, in which it would not appear, did we commence digging up the ground. I have often been surprised in the midst of woods, where no suspicion of its presence existed, when watching some other creature, to see the robin inquisitively perched upon some naked spray near me; or, when digging up a plant in some very retired place, to observe its immediate descent upon some poor worm that I had moved. The robin loses nearly all the characteristic color from its breast in the summer, when it moults, and only recovers it on the approach of autumn; which in some measure accounts for the extraordinary assertion of Pliny, that the redbreast is only so in winter, but becomes a firetail in summer. The object of the song of birds is not agreed upon by ornithologists, and we will not now think of it, but merely in passing note how singularly timed the song of the robin is. The blackbird, and the thrush, in mild seasons, will sing occasionally throughout the winter; but the robin, after having been absent all the summer, returns to us late in autumn, and then commences its song, when most others of our feathered choristers are silent. An apparent contention in harmony ensues among them; at length the rivals approach, menace, and fight, with a seeming vexation at each other’s prowess. The song of no one bird is, perhaps, more observed and remembered than the autumnal and, at times, melancholy sounding farewell of the robin.