AN ELUSIVE THRUSH. 



41 



very own productions, peculiar to it alone. The owner 

 of the island informed nae that the cat-bird remained 

 with them all the year, but he could not remember ever 

 having found a nest. I have therefore reluctantly been 

 compelled to note it as a doubtful resident, for it would 

 have been distinctly interesting to have made certain that 

 it bred here ; since outside the limits of the mainland, 

 the Bermudas, as far as I am aware, are the only islands 

 on which it has been found to nest. In these last islands 

 I have found several nests of this bird, and one could 

 hardly wish to see a more alluring sight than the beautiful 

 eggs they contained, with their deep Egyptian or peacock- 

 blue colour, absolutely devoid of spots. Cat-birds from 

 Swan Island do not dilffer in any way from those found 

 on the mainland, which is another reason for thinking 

 they cannot be really resident, or, at any rate, have only 

 very recently become so ; although, on the other hand, 

 it is extremely difficult to persuade oneseK, as some have 

 done, that Bermuda birds differ from mainland ones. 



When Mr. Townsend visited Swan Island in 1886, 

 he obtained some specimens of No. 3, the Swan Island 

 thrush, which were thought to differ from the one found 

 in the western end of Cuba, and it was accordingly looked 

 upon as a sub-species of this Cuban thrush. Whether 

 it reaUy does exist on Swan Island to-day we cannot say, 

 for though we hunted high and low for it, and scoured 

 every nook and corner of the woods, never a sign of it 

 did we see. Every collecting party that left the yacht 

 was implored to keep a strict look out for it and bring 

 one back " dead or alive." Day after day some of us 

 would start out bent on finding it. Some were continually 

 imagining that they had seen one. It came at last to be 

 a sort of " hidden treasure " thrush. Many of the crew, 

 who had never been known before to exhibit the slightest 

 taste for ornithology, used to wander about the island 

 peering into every bush they came across. " Good 

 morning, have you seen the thrush ? " became nearly as 

 common a question as the one so unforgettably associated 



