ii6 Notes fro7n Alameda County. [zoe 



a catbird which had strayed from his rightful home. I crept up 

 cautiously for I only had a small 22 calibre cane-^gun, and easily 

 approached within twenty feet. It made no note and did not pay 

 the least attention to my maneuvers. When I killed it, I was still 

 more puzzled, for it was totally different from anything I had ever 

 seen. It appeared much like some European thrush. 



The prevailing color is a dark hair brown varying to lighter oi" 

 darker on different regions of the body. The top and sides of 

 head, back, wings, tail and under-tail coverts are a uniform dark 

 hair brown; throat somewhat streaked with ashy after the pattern 

 of our robin, but the black streaks of the common bird are re- 

 placed by brown and the white by ashy; jugulum conspicuously 

 washed by dark rusty, abruptly terminating at the belly with faint 

 indications of a black band as in Hesperocichla; feathers of bellv 

 broadly edged with ashy; flanks washed with rusty, with short ashv 

 streaks effected by the shafts which are of an ashy color, with often 

 slight margins of the same on each side; bill of same, dark brown 

 color; tarsi and feet also darker. 



The bill is less notched than ordinarily in robins. This, together 

 with the peculiar disposition of the rusty wash, at first made me 

 rather chary in referring the bird to Merula, but on closer inspection 

 it seems to be undoubtedly a rare melanistic plumage of our western 

 robin. In taking on this singular phase, it has departed from the 

 disposition of color seen in the ordinary bird as will be seen by the 

 tollowing: The top of head is no darker than the rest of the back: 

 the black and white streaks of the throat of the ordinary bird art- 

 replaced by close irregular streakings of dark chocolate over an 

 ashy ground; the rusty wash of the jugulum, instead of following 

 clear down the belly to tail coverts, terminates abruptly at the breast, 

 and gives way to an' ashy cast which continues to the vent. The 

 under-tail coverts, instead of being the lightest part of the bird's 

 coloration, is as dark as elsewhere, and there is no trace of the 

 white tips on the outer- tail leathers. The downy under plumage 

 is also darker than in the common bird. 



These singular departures from the general tone of a 'robin are 

 inexplicable to me, and at first made me doubtful in calling the bird 

 a robin. 



Although a few melanistic phases have been recorded of the east- 

 ern species, this is, I believe, the first specimen of a melanistic west- 

 ern robin recorded. 



