FOR A MUSEUM. 



119 



grounds for so doing : the former (to which Mr. Swainson restricts the 

 term Merula) are rather more stoutly built ; and the common blackbird 

 of this country differs a little in habit, being- never, I believe, strictly 

 gregarious, and passing its time more in low underwood, protecting 

 itself by stealth and concealment, rather than by open vigilance like the 

 thrushes with spotted breasts : but these characters are at most but of 

 little importance, and are not constant in the exotic species. The M. 

 migratoria, of North America, is as gregarious as the fieldfare, which 

 bird it indeed very much resembles, excepting in being much more 

 familiar; and moreover, some of the American thrushes with spotted 

 breasts are solitary. This division is, indeed, quite unnecessary ; but 

 I think differently of the separation of the rock thrushes, (Merles saxi- 

 coles of M. Temminck,) and their formation into a genus (Petrocincla, 

 Vigors). These form a very natural group *, and I am of opinion that 

 the ring-ousel of this country {Merula torquata, Ray) should range in 

 it. Hitherto it has been always placed among the wood-thrushes 

 (Merles silvanes, Tem.) ; but it seems, in fact, to be an intermediate 

 species, connecting the rock thrushes (Petrocincla) with that part of 

 the genus Merula to which the blackbird belongs, but leaning rather to 

 Petrocincla. It might with propriety, therefore, be denominated P. 

 meruloides. This bird is very regular in its migration in these parts, 

 appearing for a few days about the middle of April, and again at the 

 latter end of September. Three specimens of it — male, female, and 

 young — should be preserved. They are handsomest in the spring. 



I shall conclude for the present with a few remarks on the common 

 starling (Sturnus variabilis, Meyer). At least seven specimens are 

 necessary to illustrate this species properly ; the young are at first of a 

 uniform brown all over, and one in this state should be preserved ; they 

 soon begin to moult ; and a specimen, when moulting, should also I 

 think be stuffed, in illustration of the change. Both sexes, immedi- 

 ately after the first moult, are very handsome, and specimens of them 

 should be procured about November ; the males are then very thickly 

 speckled, and their hues brighter than those of the female ; the spots of 

 the latter are much larger, especially about the head and on the belly ; 

 the bill of each brownish black, or dark horn colour. The male that has 

 moulted twice differs only in not being quite so much spotted on the 



* A specimen of the blue-grey rock thrush (P. cyanea), said to have been shot 



in Kent, is now for sale, at Mr. Tucker's, in the Regent's Quadrant, London 



E. B. 



