Species IX. TURD US MIGRATORIUS. 



ROBIN. 



[Plate II. Fig. 2.] 



Linn. Sijst. i., p. 292, 6. — Turdus Canadensis, Briss. ii., p. 225, 9. — La Litorne de 

 Canada, Buff, hi., p. 307. — Gi-ive de Canada, PL Enl. 556, 1. — Fieldfare of 

 Carolina, Cat. Car. 1, 29. — Red-breasted Thrush, Arct. Zool. ii., No. 196. — Lath. 

 Syn. 11., p. 26. — Bartram, p. 290. 



This well known bird, being familiar to almost every body, will 

 require but a sbort description. It measures nine inches and a half in 

 length ; the bill is strong, an inch long, and of a full yellow, though 

 sometimes black, or dusky near the tip of the upper mandible ; the 

 head, back of the neck and tail is black ; the back and rump an ash 

 color ; the wings are black edged with light ash ; the inner tips of the 

 two exterior tail feathers are white ; three small spots of white border 

 the eye ; the throat and upper part of the breast is black, the former 

 streaked with white ; the whole of the rest of the breast, down as far 

 as the thighs, is of a dark orange ; belly and vent white, slightly waved 

 with dusky ash ; legs dark brown ; claws black and strong. The colors 

 of the female are more of the light ash, less deepened with black ; and 

 the orange on the breast is much paler, and more broadly skirted with 

 white. The name of this bird bespeaks him a bird of passage, as are 

 all the different species of Thrushes we have ; but the one we are now 

 describing being more unsettled, and continually roving about from one 

 region to another, during fall and winter, seems particularly entitled to 

 the appellation. Scarce a winter passes but innumerable thousands of 

 them are seen in the lower parts of the whole Atlantic states, from New 

 Hampshire to Carolina, particularly in the neighborhood of our towns ; 

 and from the circumstance of their leaving, during that season, the 

 country to the north-west of the great range of the Alleghany, from 

 Maryland northward, it would appear that they not only migrate from 

 north to south, but from west to east, to avoid the deep snows that 

 generally prevail on these high regions for at least four months in the 

 year. 



The Robin builds a large nest, often on an apple tree, plasters it in 

 the inside Mith mud, and lines it with hay or fine grass. The female 

 lays five eggs of a beautiful sea green. Their principal food is berries, 

 worms and caterpillars. Of the first he prefers those of the sour gum 



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