ORDER PASSERES. 529 



to them with many other birds, but the excrements remain at 

 the entrance of their oesophagus, and they reject them in some 

 spot away from the nest, so as to remove all suspicion of the 

 place where their young family is concealed. The usual aliment 

 of these birds consists of the small worms, which they procure 

 by scraping up the earth, of berries, of turnips, and cater- 

 pillars. When these are wanting, they have recourse to cher- 

 ries, grapes, and other kinds of tender fruits. Then it is that 

 their flesh acquires the delicacy which renders it in equal 

 estimation with that of the song-thrush. They are not mis- 

 trustful, and are more easily ensnared than almost any bird. 

 The fowlers of the continent say, however, that they will avoid 

 any snares that are made only of black or white horsehairs. 

 In Burgundy, therefore, they are made of white and black 

 hairs twisted together. We are almost inclined to regard this 

 as a vulgar prejudice. 



Of the Punctated Thrush, of which we give a figure, from 

 the Museum of the Linnsean Society, little is known as to 

 habits and manners. It is a native of New Holland, and has 

 been well described by Mr. Vigors and Dr. Horsfield, in the 

 fifteenth volume of the Linnaean Transactions. The general 

 colour of the plumage is brown, inclining to olive ; breast ash- 

 colour, and belly rufous-buff; a white streak over the eye, 

 and chin and throat white ; tail greatly wedged, and legs pale- 

 yellow. 



This species is the type of a new genus proposed by Mr. 

 Vigors and Dr. Horsfield, under the name of Cinclosonia, of 

 which these gentlemen observe : '' The birds of this genus 

 appear to belong to that subdivision of the thrushes, which, 

 by the weaker conformation of the bill, opens a passage to the 

 slender-billed warblers. They deviate very considerably from 

 the typical form of the merulidcs. Besides the more gracile 

 shape of the bill, the nares may be observed to be Hnear and 

 longitudinal, instead of being rounded, as in the true turdi ; 

 the wings are short and rounded, the first quill-feathers being 



