•294 TURDID.E. 



Belgium and iu Heligoland. A few breed every year on the 

 Hartz Mountains, and it may be traced tlience in an eastward 

 direction across the Kussian Empire, being common, in certain 

 elevated and rocky localities, to China, where, Pere David 

 says, it summers on the Pekin Mountains. Mr, Blanford 

 obtained it near Ava in Burma, and, though not yet recorded 

 from the plains of India, it is said to have been procured in 

 Western Thibet, as well as in the upper portion of the Sutlej 

 valley, Cashmere, Yarkand and Turkestan. It has been 

 met with on the Persian coast of the Caspian Sea, and is a 

 summer- visitor to Palestine, arriving from its winter quarters 

 in Arabia or Africa, for many observers have noted it as a 

 bird of double passage in Egypt, and it has been obtained as 

 far south as Abyssinia. The late Mr. Chambers-Hodgetts 

 saw it in Tripoli, and it is stated by Loche to be resident in 

 Algeria, occupying the highest parts of the Atlas. On the 

 west coast of Africa it has been found, according to Messrs. 

 Sharpe and Dresser, at Casamane and Bissao. Inmost of the 

 islands of the Mediterranean as well as in the lower parts of 

 the countries bordering its northern shores, the Rock-Thrush 

 is a common bird of double passage, but it also breeds more 

 or less abundantly in the mountainous districts of their 

 interior, and there are few, if any, of the higher ranges of 

 Central Europe which do not afford it a summer home and 

 consequently a nursery. 



The male is an excellent songster, and is a common cage- 

 bird in some countries. Naturally it is very shy and difficult 

 of approach, settling on prominent places, whence it is able 

 to command a view all around. It feeds on various berries, 

 insects and earth-worms. Among fragments of rock, or loose 

 stones, the pair make their nest, which is constructed of moss, 

 lined with fine roots or hair ; the eggs, five or six in number, 

 and measuring from 1 '12 to -97 by from '77 to* 55 in., are 

 a light greenish-blue, not shining as those of the Song- 

 Thrush, and generally without markings, but occasionally 

 slightly speckled and streaked with reddish-brown. 



The male bird has the bill black, the irides hazel : the 

 whole of the head, neck and upper part of the back bluish- 



