46 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



At the time Batchelder described this form, the details of its distribu- 

 tion had not been worked out, but he was safe in stating that "prob- 

 ably all the robins breeding in the Carolinas and Georgia, outside of 

 the mountain region of these States, will prove to belong to the new 

 form, while those that pass the summer among the mountains, and in 

 the low country of the adjacent region to the north, may be expected 

 to be variously intermediate between it and true migratoria." 



The 1931 Check-list gives it as breeding "from southern Illinois and 

 Maryland to northern Mississippi, central Alabama, northern Georgia, 

 and upper South Carolina." Recent investigations (Wetmore, 1937 

 and 1940) have shown that the southern robin breeds at the lower 

 elevations at least as far north as West Virginia and Kentucky, where 

 it begins to intergrade with the northern form. 



Although generally considered to be a bird of the lower levels, it 

 occurs on the tops of some of the higher southern mountains, notably 

 Mount Mitchell, which rises to a height of 6,084 feet in western North 

 Carolina. There, according to Thomas D. Burleigh (1941), it is — 



a fairly plentiful breeding bird in the fir and spruce woods at the top of the moun- 

 tain where, to one familiar with this species about the lawns in towns and cities, 

 it seems at first rather out of place. Its arrival in the spring is influenced to a 

 certain extent by the weather, and while it invariably appears by the latter part 

 of March a relatively mild winter, as in 1933-34, has seen its return as early as 

 March 8. It is rarely observed after the last brood of young are fully grown, the 

 one exception being a flock of twenty birds noted October 28, 1932. It is possible 

 that two broods are reared for a nest found June 3, 1930, held three well-incubated 

 eggs, while on August 10, 1931, young barely able to fly were seen being fed by the 

 two adult birds. There are no records for the occurrence of the northern race 

 here, all specimens taken both in the spring and in the fall being clearly referable 

 to T. m. achrusterus. 



A. L. Pickens writes to me from Paducah, Ky.: 



One of the most remarkable extensions of range that I have observed is that 

 made in recent decades by the southern robin. Early in the present century the 

 robin, in the South Carolina Piedmont, was regarded as a harbinger of cold 

 weather. They descended from the mountains and the more northern areas to 

 feed on chinaberries especially; and some were reputed to have become intoxi- 

 cated from eating the fermented fruit, a condition which I personally never 

 observed. As the smaller towns installed civic waterworks and water was avail- 

 able for lav/ns, and incidentally for earthworms, robins apparently began to 

 spread, as inhabitants of cities and towns, until they may now be found in summer, 

 even far down on the coast plain. In wet summers, when pastures are lawnlike, 

 the birds may be found even out among the farms six and seven miles from town; 

 but let a dry summer succeed and they yield the areas of farmland held the season 

 before. 



The reader is also referred to an extensive paper by Odum and 

 Burleigh (1946) on this general subject, which is too long to be quoted 

 here. 



Nesting. — M. G. Vaiden, of Rosedale, Miss., writes to me that he 



