THRUSHES, SOLITAIRES, BLUEBIRDS: ROBIN 563 
5,000 to 6,000 feet, but after the breeding season it is found more 
often on the mesa and is quite common in the valley near Mesilla Park, 
in the winter. On the mesa it is wild and hard to approach and in its 
rock-strewn breeding haunts seems always in the act of just disappear¬ 
ing. In winter it is not so wild in the valley and I have had it run 
along in front of me some distance before fluttering aside into the 
bushes. For tenderness, richness of melody, and genuineness its song 
surpasses the Mockingbird’s (MS). 
Additional Literature.—Gilman, M. F., Condor, IX, 42-44, 1907.— Rust, H. 
J., Condor, XTX, 35, 1917 (nest).— Taylor, W. P., Field Notes on Amphibians, 
Reptiles, and Birds of Northern Humboldt County, Nevada, Univ. of Calif. Pub. 
in Zook, Vol. 7, No. 10, pp. 413-416, Feb. 14, 1912. 
THRUSHES, SOLITAIRES, BLUEBIRDS, etc.: Family Turdidae 
In the North American forms of Turdidae the bill is usually slender, 
the wing, over three inches long, is more or less pointed, and longer 
than the tail, with ten primaries, the first of which is spurious or short; 
while the tarsus is booted , its anterior plates, except a few below, being 
fused in a continuous plate; and the young have a spotted breast (Coues). 
References.—Beal, F. E. L., U. S. Dept. Agr. Bull. 171, 1915; U. S. Dept. 
Agr. Bull. 280, 1915. 
WESTERN ROBIN: Turdus migratorius propmquus Mearns 
Description. — Length : 10-11 inches, wing 5.2-5.7, tail 3.8-4.7, bill .8-.9, 
tarsus 1.2-1.4. Adult male in spring and summer: Head, wings, and tail blackish (lores 
and eyelids marked with white), wings and tail with grayish edgings; rest of upper- 
parts of olivaceous gray, abruptly defined against black of head; chin white, throat 
black, streaked with white; rest of underparts cinnamon-rufous, fading to white on 
lower belly and under tail coverts; bill yellow, upper mandible with dusky tip. 
Adult male in fall and winter: Similar, but upperparts more tinged with olive brown, 
underparts with feathers tipped with white; bill blackish, horn color below. Adult 
female: Similar to male but usually duller, blackish feathers of head margined with 
grayish; underparts paler with white margins to feathers, partly persistent in summer. 
Young: Upperparts streaked with white or buffy; underparts spotted. 
Range. —Breeds mainly in Canadian and Transition Zones from southern 
British Columbia, southern Montana, and Black Hills south to northern Mexico 
and southern California; winters from southern British Columbia and Wyoming 
south to highlands of Guatemala. 
State Records. —The Western Robin has quite a wide range in the mountains 
of central and western New Mexico, where it breeds east to Cloudcroft, 9,000 feet 
(Bailey); Capitan Mountains, southeast slope (Gaut); Anton Chico, 5,500 feet 
(Ligon); Ribera, 6,000 feet (Bailey). [The Robin and the Gray-headed Junco are 
the commonest birds of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains (Ligon, 1919). On June 
26, 1922, a completed nest was found at 12,000 feet on Lake Peak (Jensen). It also 
nests freely in Albuquerque about 5,000 feet (Ligon, 1916-1918).] Its breeding 
range extends south to the Organ Mountains, 6,500 feet (Merrill); Fort Webster 
