66 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



apparently practically indistinguishable. Mr. Turner (MS.) inferred 

 that incubation begins before the set is complete. 



He says further: "I found nothing in their habits to differ from 

 their actions in other localities. Their food consists of insects during 

 the breeding season; and in the earliest days of their arrival they 

 subsist principally on the berries of Empetrum nigrum and Vaccinium, 

 which were preserved by the frost during the winter. When the 

 berries ripen in the fall, these birds apparently eat nothing else. 

 During the early days of June and before it was possible for young 

 birds to be hatched, I frequently observed male robins searching near 

 my house for worms and other food. During these times I never saw 

 a female, yet the male birds secured their beaks full of food and flew 

 away with it, leading me to conclude that the food was destined for 

 the females which were sitting at that particular time." 



He observed this robin at Fort Chimo as late as October 17 during 

 the fall of 1882. 



TURDUS CONFINIS Baird 

 SAN LUCAS ROBIN 



HABITS 



The San Lucas robin is a beautiful pale edition of our familiar robins, 

 clad in the softest, blended colors. The upperparts are plain "smoke 

 gray" or "mouse gray" ; there is no black or even blackish on the head, 

 and the breast is creamy buff or creamy white, instead of the rich 

 "cinnamon-rufous" so characteristic of our northern birds. We may 

 miss the rich colors, but there is no mistaking it as a robin. 



The type specimen was collected by Xantus at Todos Santos, in 

 the Cape region of Lower California, during the summer of 1860. 

 This specimen, still in the United States National Museum, remained 

 unique for over 20 years. During the winter of 1882 and 1883, Lyman 

 Belding (1884) explored the mountains of the Cape region and ob- 

 tained two more specimens of this robin, which were deposited in the 

 National Museum. He writes: 



The most important localities visited were in the Victoria Mountains [now known 

 as the Sierra de la Laguna], which were probably never previously explored by 

 any collector. I ascended these mountains by three different trails on as many 

 different spurs. The trail leading to Laguna is the longest, highest, and possibly 

 the worst; however, I suppose either of them would be considered impassable in 

 any other country than Mexico. On this trail an altitude of about 5,000 feet 

 was reached. From an altitude of about 3,500 feet and upward the flora was 

 partly that of the temperate zone. 



This region is well watered and well timbered with medium-sized oaks and 

 pines, the latter constituting about a tenth of the forest, being distributed un- 

 evenly among the oaks. Bunch grass was everywhere abundant. * * * Upon 

 meeting the first pines, I discovered almost simultaneously the long sought Cape 



