BIRDS OF MINNESOTA 445 



and berries later. Indeed there is little which they can swal- 

 low that does not, under special circumstances, become food 

 for them. Of berries they ofttimes eat to downright 

 gluttony. Indeed when they are abundant the male Robins 

 will remain often in small numbers until driven away by the 

 keener frosts of the middle of November. A few have, in a few 

 instances, braved the entire winter subsisting chiefly upon 

 juniper berries which abound along the borders of lakes in the 

 vicinity of springy swamps. I do not remember of an in- 

 stance in which the Robin has approached the habitations of 

 man at this rigorous season in this latitude and longitude. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Third and fourth quills about equal; fifth a little shorter, 

 second longer than sixth; tail slightly rounded; above olive- 

 gray; top and sides of the head black; chin and throat white, 

 streaked with black; eyelids and a spot above the eye anter- 

 iorly, white; under parts and insides of wings, chestnut-brown; 

 under tail coverts and anal region with tibiae white, showing 

 the plumbeous inner portions of the feathers; wings dark- 

 brown, the feathers all edged more or less with pale-ash; tail 

 still darker, the extreme feathers tipped with white; bill 

 yellow, dusky along the ridge and at the tip. 



Length, 9.75; wing, 5.45; tail, 4.75; tarsus, 1.25. 



Habitat, eastern North America to the Rocky Mountains. 



(I have seen the largest numbers of individuals of this 

 species in flocks on the eastern foothill of the Santa Cruz 

 division of the Coast Range of Mountains in Santa Clara 

 county, California, which I have ever seen anywhere in my 

 life time. ) 



MERIJLA MIGBATOEIA PROPINQIA Ridgway. 761a.) 

 WESTERN ROBIN. 



This species is introduced because a single individual has 

 been reliably identified in the northwestern part of the State, 

 and others credibly reported as found on the Missouri river. 

 Several visits to the Pacific coast, in one of which I spent about 

 two years within the bounds of California, gave me a rare op- 

 portunity to observe the birds at different seasons and in a great 

 var iety of localities. I first met this species in the month of 

 Pe bruary, 1870, along the thinly timbered banks of the Co- 

 su mnes river about twenty miles southeast of Sacramento. Its 

 peculiar call-notes arrested my ear at some little distance from 

 me, which, as it was frequently repeated, enabled me to find 

 t he bird. It was perched upon one of the higher branches of a 



