120 The Ottawa Naturalist. [September 



March or beginning of April. Nearly seven inches in length, 

 sky-blue above, breast, reddish brown. It is a welcome bit of 

 colour, in the dull tone of the early spring landscape. Lowell 

 brings a familiar view of him to our minds when he says : 

 " The bluebird shifting his light load of song from post to 

 post along the cheerless fence." Of its song, Burroughs says : 

 " The bluebird's note is more pleasing than most bird songs ; if it 

 could be reproduced in colour, it would be the blue of the purest 

 sky," Its few low sweet notes are heard with pleasure by those 

 favoured, as it is now rather scarce owing, it is reported, to great 

 numbers being killed by severe and protracted frosts exper- 

 ienced in the southern states, notably Georgia, in the winter of 

 1895-96. 



It favours a partially cleared locality and builds a loose nest 

 well down in a hollow post, stump, or apple tree to hold the four 

 to six pale blue eggs. It used to occupy boxes put up for its use 

 till the house sparrow came. A few years ago a pair took pos- 

 session of a robin's nest, containing two eggs, that was built on a 

 beam under a verandah close to a railway. The robins fought 

 hard for their home but had to give in.— GERTRUDE Harmer. 



Common P^OBIN, Merula migratoria. — The name " robin," 

 given to this bird, which is really a thrush, is certainly a mis- 

 nomer, and like many other popular errors, may be traced to the 

 early settlers' habit of naming animals or birds after apparently 

 similar forms in the land whence they came. Although much 

 larger, there is in this case some resemblance to the robin red- 

 breast of the Old World, the congener of which in America is the 

 bluebird (Sialia). Our robin is a migrant, although stragglers are 

 reported remaining all winter. I have never, however, got an 

 authentic reliable record of such fact, and am under the impression 

 the shrike, one of our winter birds, is mistaken for the robin, 

 The latter is not as common as it was some years ago, owing 

 partly to persecution by the sparrow, and partly to indiscrim- 



