* * * * A THRUSU-ROBIN.
Any lover of birds who visits the London Zoo will find peculiar interest in a recent arrival from Mexico. The bird is quite new to me, and is called, with complete aptness, a thrush-robin. We have some of us blamed the Pilgrim Fathers for their ornithological inexactitude in calling the American thrush a robin, merely because its breast had a certain ruddiness. But here is a bird that seems to partake equally of the nature and appearance of our own thrush and robin. A long and persistent attempt—which seemed very promising in the early stages—was made to naturalize the American robin here. I saw many successfully reared by thrushes and blackbirds in a Surrey garden, but in late October the migratory mania seized them and they vanished no one knows where, and did not return. Yet there have been rumours of returned birds ; and if anyone should sec during the summer in Britain a thrush that resembles a fieldfare and chuckles agreeably, it is hoped that he will report the event.
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