MARCH 6, 1900 VoL. I, PP. 103-106 
PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
NEW ENGLAND ZOOLOGICAL CLUB 
AN UNDESCRIBED ROBIN. 
BY CHARLES F. BATCHELDER. 
In the eastern United States the American robin is far from 
common in summer at most localities near the extreme southern 
limits of its breeding range. Hence it is not surprising that orni- 
thologists have overlooked the fact that the robins breeding there 
differ so notably from those which pass the summer in the 
northern United States and eastern Provinces of Canada that 
they form a well-marked subspecies. 
When Linnzeus described the robin and named it Zurdus 
migratorius, he gave its habitat as North America, and mentioned, 
as the sources of his information concerning it, the previous 
accounts of the bird by Catesby, Kalm and Brisson. Catesby’s 
observations, it is well known, were made chiefly in what is now 
South Carolina. Hence at first one might suppose that the name 
migratorius applied in reality to this southern form, and that the 
common Northern robin was in need of a name. Fortunately, 
an examination of the statements of these pre-Linnazan writers 
makes it clear that they were based upon Northern-bred birds. 
Catesby says: ‘In winter they arrive from the north in Vir- 
ginia and Carolina, in numerous flights, and return in the spring.” 
His further references to a solitary individual that stayed through 
