US



The Mexican Ground Thrush.



THE MEXICAN GROUND THRUSH.


Geocichla pinicola.


By Hubert D. Astley, F.Z.S., M.B.O.U.


I have received a true pair of this Geocichla , which I think

must be almost the first to be imported. This Thrush has never

been in the collection of the London Zoological Gardens. It is

an inhabitant of the pine-woods in the highlands of Mexico,

where Mr. Richardson found it nesting at a height of 8,000 feet.

It is also called Ridgwayia pinicola and Turdus poecilopte 7 'us.


This bird is about the same size as the better known

Orange-headed Ground Thrush (G. citrinal), but is quite different

in colouring. The male is dark umber-brown above, the feathers

on the head and upper back having paler brown centres. The

throat and breast are also dark blackish brown, the underparts

ashy white, to white. The wings are pied with white and pale

ash-brown, with geocichline markings, and the tail is tipped with

the same colour. The final feathers of the upper tail-coverts are

also white, giving the bird a decidedly pied appearance. Bill,

dark grey ; legs and feet, pinkish.


The female has the same pied markings, but where the

male is deep umber-brown, she is altogether lighter and more

spotted, so that the sexes are quite unmistakable.


Very little seems, according to Seebolun (Monograph of

the Turdidcs) to be known of this Thrush. My birds are at

present in a cage, and are quiet and inclined to be tame. Coming,

as they do, from the high pine forests of Mexico, they have pro¬

bably as a species not been frightened by mankind. The family

to which they belong is an interesting one, and in many cases

are good songsters. My Pine Thrushes have a very melodious

call note, resembling a railway guard’s whistle, blown softly; the

sound falling at the end.


Some lovely Geocichlce are found in Sumatra, Borneo, etc.,

with a bold mixture of bright chestnut, black, and white. They

are by no means altogether Ground Thrushes, although they are

fond of hopping about under bushes and shrubs, but my Orange¬

headed Ground Thrushes perch quite as much as any other

-species of Thrush, and when they nested and successfully reared

a young one during the summer of 1911, they chose the very

highest spot they could find in the aviary in which to build.



