RED-BREASTED THRUSH. 183 
Plumage olive brown, underneath rufous; head of the adult 
blackish, more or less spotted with brown below, and of an 
ashy brown tint above in the young. 
Measurement.—Length nine inches and four lines; beak twelve 
lines; tail three inches and six lines; feet fifteen lines; toe with 
claw twelve lines and a half; extent of wings fourteen inches and 
eight lines. 
Tuis is a North American species, where it ranges 
as far as Hudson’s Bay. It is only an accidental 
yisitor to Europe. According to Temminck it has been 
killed frequently in Germany; on the testimony of 
Brehm it is recorded as having been killed near Vienna; 
and M. de Selys Longchamps thinks that the specimen 
indicated by Schinz of Turdus rufus, as having been 
lulled in England is referable to this species. Whether 
this latter remark be true or not I cannot say, but 
as we know nothing of its habits in Europe, I have 
much pleasure in introducing the following graphic and 
interesting account of it from “Fauna Boreali Americana’’ 
by Swainson. 
“The Red-breasted Thrush is very common in 
America, where it is called the Robin. It affects the 
neighbourhood of towns, and is observed to feed much 
on the fruit of Nyosa sylvatica, and on poke-berries, 
Phylotacea decandria. 
It begins to sing in March, and pairs early in April. 
Its nests were observed as high as the sixty-seventh 
parallel of latitude, and as low as the fifty-fourth. The 
young are hatched about the end of May im the latter 
districts, but not until the 11th. of June further north. 
The snow even then partially covers the ground, but 
there are in the high latitudes abundance of berries of 
Vaccinium uliginosum and V. vitis-idea, Arbutus alpina, 
Empetrum nigrum, and some other plants, which having 
