THE ORNITHOLOGIST. 



Vol. I. AUGUST, 1896. No. 6. 



THE AMERICAN ROBIN. 



TUEDUS MlGRATORIUS, LlNN^US (1766). 



No. 761, Merula Migratoria, A.O.U. Check List, 1895. 

 By The Editor. 



The fact that this familiar North American species has 

 occurred in the British Islands — whether as a genuine visitor 

 or not, being, however, a matter of opinion — should make a 

 slight sketch of the bird, and of its habits and nidification, 

 of interest to those who have not had an opportunity of 

 observing it in its native haunts. 



It has been obtained on one occasion near Dover, and twice 

 near Dublin; the last instance being that cited in the " Zoo- 

 logist " for 1891 (p. 217), of a bird shot at Springmount, 

 Shankill, co. Dublin, May 4th, 1891, and now in the Science 

 and Art Museum, Dublin. It would be unwise to declare that 

 these examples must have been escaped birds ; yet, on the other 

 hand, the mere fact of their capture does not entitle us to say 

 that the species has occurred on " such-and-such " occasions in 

 the British Islands, and so to add it to the British list, on the 

 strength of these occurrences. Yet I must, for my own part, 

 distinctly disavow any intention of inferring that the species 

 could not be a genuine visitor to us ; for it must be remembered 

 that it is a migratory species, which pushes its migrations 

 regularly so far to the northward as Labrador, and so far to 



