OF NEW ENGLAND. 45 
(a). 9-10 inches long ; slate-color. Beneath, orange-brown. 
Band across the breast, black. Under tail-coverts, white. 9 
duller. 
(b). The eggs of this species measure about 1:15 x -80 
of an inch, and are greenish blue, darkly spotted. 
(c). Its habits are presumably much like those of our 
Robin. 
(d). “From this bird it may be readily distinguished by 
the difference of its notes, which are louder, sharper, and de- 
livered with greater rapidity.” Dr. Cooper ‘describes the 
song as consisting of five or six notes in a minor key, and in 
a scale regularly descending.” 
II. MIMUS 
(A) Potyeottus. Mocking Bird. 
(A very rare, or almost accidental summer-visitor to south- 
ern New England.) 
(a). 9-10 inches long. Above, rather light ashy gray. 
Beneath, white. Wings and tail dark, with conspicuous white 
patches. 
(6). The nest is built near the ground, often in a conspic- 
uous situation. Audubon describes it as “ coarsely construct- 
ed on the outside, being there composed of dried sticks of 
briars, withered leaves of trees, and grasses, mixed with wool. 
Internally it is finished with fibrous roots disposed in a circu- 
lar form, but carelessly arranged.” An egg before me measures 
1:00 &* °75 of an inch, and is of a very light dull blue, rather 
coarsely spotted with lilac and rather faint purplish or reddish 
umber. 
(c). So many Mocking Birds have recently been captured 
in New England and Massachusetts itself, that they cannot 
longer be well considered escaped cage-birds. They must 
therefore be ranked here as very rare summer-residents. Since, 
however, their presence is almost exceptional, since their hab- 
its are much like those of the common Cat-bird, since their 
powers of mimicry and song are well-known, and finally, 
since I am personally unacquainted with their natural mode of 
. 
