TURDUS 



usually seeks its food on the ground; big snails it beats on a stone 

 to break the shell before picking them to pieces and eating them. 

 When the fruit is ripe it varies its diet with the smaller fruit 

 and berries, and in winter feeds on various kinds of wild berries. 

 Its nest is constructed of grass-bents, roots, moss, &c., and 

 lined with a mixture of rotten wood and clay or dung, and the 

 surface is carefully smoothed. It is usually placed on a bush or 

 tree, but occasionally on a bank or amongst ivy or creepers. 

 The eggs, 4 or 5 in number, are deposited late in March 

 or in April, are blue, spotted with black or occasionally with red 

 or brownish purple, but sometimes are blue, unspotted. In size 

 they average about TO by 0'8. Two broods are usually raised 

 in the season. 



3. MONGOLIAN SONG THRUSH. 

 TURDUS AURITUS. 



Turdus auritus, Verr. N. Arch. Mus. Bull. vi. p. 34 (1870) ; Prjev. 

 Mong. i. Strana Tang. ii. pi. xx., fig. 13 (egg) ; Pleske, Prjevalsky's 

 Keisen, Vogel, p. 4, Taf. v. fig. 1 (eggs) ; Seebohm, Cat. B. Br. Mus. 

 v. p. 193. 



Ad. (Kansu). Kesembles T. musicus, but is of a richer olive brown 

 .above, the spots on the wing-coverts are more clearly defined ; below with 

 larger and darker spots, the feathers on the cheeks with black terminal 

 bands ; axillaries and under wing-coverts darker buff ; 3rd, 4th, and 5th 

 quills nearly equal and longest, 2nd slightly longer than the 7th ; beak 

 brown, the base of the lower mandible white ; legs greyish flesh ; iris brown. 

 Culmen 0'9, wing 4*7, tail 3'8, tarsus T37 inch. Sexes alike. The nestling 

 has the upper parts spotted and striped with warm ochreous, the spots on 

 the under parts smaller and washed with ochreous. 



Hob. Northern China (E. Szechuen and Pekin) and Kansu in 

 Mongolia. 



It frequents mountain groves in Mongolia, and is not com- 

 mon. Prjevalsky found two nests at Kansu in the middle of 

 May, one on a broken tree stump, and the other on a willow 

 branch, not above seven feet from the ground. He does not 

 describe the nest, but the eggs, he says, differ widely from those 

 of Turdus musicus, and run into two varieties, one having the 

 ground colour dull vinous, and the otheF light dull olivaceous, 

 and the markings are violet-grey shell blotches, and larger and 

 smaller rusty-red surface spots; they are rounder in shape 

 than those of T. musicus, and in size average T05 by 0'8. He 

 saw fledged young on the 30th June. 



B 2 



