; cas Frankli Id, brought me fine examples of
it remains all the year round at Mentone, whence my son, Dr. Franklin Gould, g amples of

both sexes killed by himself in winter. In Italy,” says Mr. Taylor, ‘I. have noticed it to be particularly
abundant about Susa, and in a less degree about Rome. Tha :
Speaking of the bird in the neighbourhood of Pisa, Dr. Henry Giglioli says it
and church-steeples, and pours forth its glowing melody even from the top

In the south of Italy and in Sicily I have often
seen it kept as a cage-bird.
generally frequents old towers
of the Verruca, a ruined medieval fortress which crow ok ae :

« Generally distributed through Southern Spain,” says Mr. Howard Saunders in ‘ The Ibis’ for 1871, “no
matter how wild the locality, the Blue Rock-Thrush will always be your companion ; and though very shy

during the breeding-season, it is by no means so at other times. I could often have shot specimens ; but

ns one of the bighest summits of the Pisan range.”

this I could never bring myself to do; and it would appear that the bird exercises some influence
over the usually unimpressionable natives; for I never saw one amongst the bunches of Thrushes &c.
either in Spain or Italy. The eggs are difficult to obtain, both from the situation of the nest and from
the babit the bird has of making several nests before finally deciding which it means to occupy. The
young are prized for the cage, but not to the same extent as in Italy, Malta, and Greece, where fabulous
prices are sometimes given for a good songster.”

Mr. Wright informs us that the “ Blue Thrush becomes strongly attached to the locality in which it has
been brought up, and seldom quits it. ‘This affection is also shown in a state of captivity ; and the bird rarely
long survives removal to.a new and strange place. Almost fabulous prices are sometimes given for a good
songster. An instance is fresh in my memory of a noble lady who considered herself fortunate in securing
one for £7 10s.; and two or three pounds is not an unusual price. The male nestlings may easily be distin-
guished from the females at a very early age by their blue wing-coverts.”

«The well-known Blue Thrush,” says Mr. Tristram, ‘is to be found in Palestine all the year round
wherever stones crop above the surface, whether by the shore or on the hills, and especially among ruins, but
always solitary. Rarely ever were a male and female to be seen together. I scarcely expected to find it (as
I did) along with the Black-and-white Kingfisher on the coast, sitting among the surf-beaten rocks, and
feeding on sand-lice and shrimps. On two occasions I killed it from the shore, and had to wade into the
sea to secure my specimens. Unsociable as it is, it yet frequents the dwelling of man, a taste for stonework
evidently overcoming all other prejudices ; but nowhere is it more thoroughly at home than among the ruins
of a deserted and untrodden Roman city, like Gerash, Rabbah, or Gadara. The ‘ vomitoria’ of the amphi-
theatres are exactly to its liking; and in the recesses of these it has its nest, the male meanwhile perched on
the top of an old column and uttering bis dolorous ditty. Mr. Cochrane and I took a nest with four fresh
eges on April 2nd, in one of the robbers’ caves in the Wady Hamam, near the Sea of Galilee. The nest was
conveniently placed on a shelf far in, without any attempt at concealment, and was like the nest of our
Blackbird, with mud mingled with the straw, instead of a shell of cow-dung. The young birds are fledged at
the beginning of May. The eggs are very pale blue, smaller than those of the Thrush.”

The figures represent what I consider to be male and female, drawn from Mentone specimens, of the size

of life-