310 LAND BIRDS 



Breeding Season : May to August. 



Nest: In low trees and bushes, sometimes near or on the ground ; made 



of grasses, moss, and rootlets ; plastered with mud, and lined with 



fine grass. 

 Eggs : 4 ; turquoise blue. 



The Western Robin, although like his Eastern repre- 

 sentative in coloring, is quite unlike him in habits. 

 Instead of building his nest near the homes of men, he 

 goes up into the lonely Sierra Nevada forests ; there I 

 have found it containing two blue eggs, when snow four 

 feet deep lay a hundred yards away. 



All through the spring and summer he remains in the 

 high altitudes of the Sierra Nevada, breeding along the 

 crest of this range as far south as the San Bernardino 

 mountains, but w^th the cold days of the fall he starts 

 on his vertical migration to the lowlands. In the win- 

 ter this species occurs nearly throughout the State ; but, 

 as all birds sing best at the mating season, he is almost 

 silent when in the valleys, and seems quite a different 

 bird from the cheery '' Robin Redbreast " who picks up 

 crumbs in our dooryards. 



The nests also of the Western Robins that I have 

 found have been somewhat different from those of the 

 Eastern bird and very much prettier, being decorated 

 with moss woven in the mud instead of straw, and care- 

 fully lined with moss. It is really a beautiful structure, 

 with the mud practically concealed from view. The 

 eggs of the two species are alike, and the newly hatched 

 young are the same naked, wriggling, skinny nestlings 

 in both cases. In both cases, also, I affirm that they are 

 fed by regurgitation for the first four days, the adult 



