442 NOTES ON THE 
The eggs, from three to four in number, are a light-blue, 
with a faint shade of green, one of which is occasionally 
thinly spotted with rusty-brown. Ido not know of their hay- 
ing more than one brood in a season. ‘They become quite 
common again during September, by the general migration 
southward, individuals not infrequently being seen as late as 
the first of November in open autumns. 
Nore. When conversing with Professor S. F. Peckham, 
formerly on the faculty of the Minnesota State University, and 
of late connected with the Smithsonian Institution, he spoke of 
the nest of this species having come under his notice once in 
Rhode Island, in open ground, and subsequently gave me a 
written statement as follows: ‘‘The nest was on the ground 
without protection, in a piece of old chestnut woods without 
underbrush. Eggs, four in number, about two-thirds the size 
of the Robin’s, somewhat thicker in shape, and of a darker 
green color.” 
I had the pleasure of learning from him that he had given 
the birds of New England much study in the years gone by, 
and was therefore speaking by the book. It was certainly a 
very remarkable freak for the Hermit Thrush to build in such 
a place. But most rules have their remarkable exceptions, 
for they are of finite formulation while the Infinite fills all the 
spans in the great viaduct of materialized truth. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Fourth quill longest; third and fourth a little shorter; second 
about equal to sixth; about thirty hundredths of an ineh shorter 
than the longest. Tail slightly emarginate. Above light 
olive brown, with a scarcely perceptible shade of reddish, 
passing however into decided rufous on the rump, upper tail 
coverts, and tail to a less degree on the outer surface of the 
wings. Beneath white, with a scarcely appreciable shade of 
pale buff across the forepart of the breast, and sometimes on 
the throat; sides of throat and forepart of breast with rather 
sharply defined subtriangular spots of dark olive brown; sides 
of breast with paler and less distinct spots of the same. Sides 
of body under the wings of a paler shade than the back; a 
whitish ring around the eye; ear coverts very obscurely 
streaked with paler. 
Length, 7.50; wing, 3.85; tail, 3.25; tarsus, 1.15. 
Habitat, eastern North America. 
MERULA MIGRATORIA (L.). (761.) 
AMERICAN ROBIN. 
Who that has watched the departure of the Robin from au- 
tumn to autumn through successive years, and felt the relent- 
less touch of artic frosts follow them so soon with their drift- 
