BIRDS OF MINNESOTA 445 
and berries later. Indeed there is little which they can swal- 
low that does not, under special circumstances, become food 
for them. Of berries they ofttimes eat to downright 
gluttony. Indeed when they are abundant the male Robins 
will remain often in small numbers until driven away by the 
keener frosts of the middle of November. A few have, in a few 
instances, braved the entire winter, subsisting chiefly upon 
juniper berries which abound along the borders of lakes in the 
vicinity of springy swamps. I do not remember of an in- 
stance in which the Robin has approached the habitations of 
‘man at this rigorous season in this latitude and longitude. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Third and fourth quills about equal; fifth a little shorter, 
second longer than sixth; tail slightly rounded; above olive- 
gray; top and sides of the head black; chin and throat white, 
‘streaked with black; eyelids and a spot above the eye anter- 
iorly, white; under parts and insides of wings, chestnut-brown; 
under tail coverts and anal region with tibize white, showing 
the plumbeous inner portions of the feathers; wings dark- 
brown, the feathers all edged more or less with pale-ash; tail 
still darker, the extreme feathers tipped with white; bill 
yellow, dusky along the ridge and at the tip. 
Length, 9.75; wing, 5.45; tail, 4.75; tarsus, 1.25. 
Habitat, eastern North America to the Rocky Mountains. 
(I have seen the largest numbers of individuals of this 
species in flocks on the eastern foothill of the Santa Cruz 
division of the Coast Range of Mountains in Santa Clara 
county, California, which I have ever seen anywhere in my 
life time. ) ) 
MERULA MIGRATORIA PROPINQUA Rireway. 761a.) 
WESTERN ROBIN. 
This species is introduced because a single individual has 
been reliably identified in the northwestern part of the State, 
and others credibly reported as found on the Missouri river. 
Several visits to the Pacific coast, in one of which I spent about 
two years within the bounds of California, gave me a rare op- 
portunity to observe the birds at different seasons and in a great 
variety of localities. I first met this species in the month of 
February, 1870, along the thinly timbered banks of the Co- 
sumnes river about twenty miles southeast of Sacramento. Its 
peculiar call-notes arrested my ear at some little distance from 
me, which, as it was frequently repeated, enabled me to find 
the bird. It was perched upon one of the higher branches of a 
