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The Mexican Pied Ground Thrush.



lately received two more, both of which I am almost sure are males;

for both are dark, and the female is easily distinguished from the

male, by being of a much lighter shade of brown throughout.


The Mexican Pied Thrush is found in the Valley of Mexico,

and up to an altitude of 8,400 feet above the sea level, at which

height it breeds. It is an inhabitant of the pine woods.


Localities where it has been found are Tetelco and Coapa,

etc. (Valley of Mexico) ; Peal del Monte, Hidalgo. Amula, Guerrero;

Sierra Nayarit, etc.


There is apparently no difference between the summer and

autumn plumage, but Seebohm remarks—Monograph of the Turdidas,

Vol. I., p. 96 — that freshly-moulted birds are somewhat more tinged

with ochraceous buff on the abdomen and under tail-coverts. Geo-

cichla pinicola resembles the Indian Pied Ground Thrush (G. Wardi),

and the Siberian, but is not so strongly and handsomely marked.


This Thrush is about the size of a Song Thrush. Both with

my first pair and my present ones, when I first received them, they

hopped out of their travelling cage in the bird-room, making them¬

selves quite at home, and evincing no shyness at all, taking meal¬

worms from the fingers almost at once. But to me they are not so

attractive as the Orange-headed Ground Thrush, one tame male of

which species lives in a cage in my bedroom, where he flies about

when I am dressing of a morning, and emits his ringing and melo¬

dious notes, seated on the edge of my dressing-table. By the

beginning of December he is in full song, and as soon as the room

is light enough with the grey dawn creeping in, he tunes up. And

how he splashes in a green basin put as his bath on the floor !

A charming pet. His orange head and breast become brighter each

moult: it is curious why some birds, like the Sepoy Finch, the

Crossbill, etc. should on the contrary lose their colour, no matter

how they are fed.


I had looked forward to my defunct pair of Mexican Pied

Thrushes breeding, and now that I have received what I believe to

be two males, my hopes are deferred !


I regret having so little to record about a species which is so

rarely imported.



