50 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



they were common a week later. * * * Mr. Gray tells me that 

 Robins have wintered, occasionally, at Wrangell." 



Nesting. — Mr. Willett (MS.) took a set of four slightly incubated 

 eggs at Ketchikan on May 30, 1925; the nest was placed 7 feet up 

 against the trunk of a young spruce tree on a hillside; the nest was 

 made of grass and twigs and lined with fine grass ; its external meas- 

 urements were 150 by 85 millimeters, and the inner cavity measured 

 90 by 55 millimeters. 



Mr. Rathbun (MS.) tells me that he has found "more than a few 

 nests of caurinus" in the coastal strip in western Washington, as 

 described above, and says: "From the first one I discovered, I noted 

 that without an exception, the nest proper always rested on a plat- 

 form or base of twigs, similar to the nest of Steller's jay or the varied 

 thrush, and in this respect it differed from that of propinquus." 



Eggs. — The northwestern robin usually lays three or four eggs, 

 which are similar in every way to those of the eastern bird. The 

 measurements of 40 eggs average 29.5 by 21.1 millimeters; the eggs 

 showing the four extremes measure 32.5 by 20.2,f 29.9 by 22.5, 27.9 

 by 22.2, and 28.5 by 19.5 millimeters. 



Food. — The food of the northwestern robin is evidently of the same 

 general character as that of other robins. Where it lives in settled 

 communities it may be seen grubbing for worms on the lawn, catching 

 various kinds of noxious insects and their larvae, or taking what 

 berries and fruit are available. 



Wild fruits and berries of various kinds form most of the food in fall 

 and winter. Dr. Bailey (1927) writes: "At Hooniah Sound, May 8-24, 

 they were exceedingly plentiful, being the most common bird of the 

 vicinity. They fed along the beaches exclusively, none being seen 

 back in the woods, or on the muskegs; while droves worked the beaches 

 like so many Sandpipers, in fact, we considered them as 'shore-birds' 

 for the time being." 



I. McT. Cowan (1942) lists the northwestern robin as one of the 

 species that feeds on the flying termites (Zootermopsis angusticollis) . 

 "In extreme southwestern British Columbia the extensive areas of 

 deforested land, strewn with decaying logs and stumps, provides ideal 

 habitat for termites." The robins and other birds "have been ob- 

 served catching Z. angusticollis close to or on the ground." 



G. D. Sprot (1926), of Cobble Hill, Vancouver Island, tells the 

 following story : "On the 13th of June 1926 a Robin (Planesticus migra- 

 torius subsp. ?) slipped from its perch on a seat in my garden into the 

 nearby shrubbery, returning to the lawn with a dead field mouse which 

 it proceeded to beat upon the ground, endeavoring also, so it appeared, 

 to crush it in its bill. Every now and then it would pick it up, run a 

 short distance and repeat the motions. For five of ten minutes it 



