I remains all the year round at Mentone, whence my son, Dr. Franklin Gonld, brought me fine examples of
both sexes killed by himself in winter. I In Italy,” says Mr. Taylor, 1 1 have noticed
abundant nbont Susa, and 1 1 less degree about Rome. In the south of Italy and g bicily I have often
seen it kept as a eage-bird Speaking o f the bird in the neighbourhood of Pisa, Dr. Henry Gigholi says
generally frequents old towers and ehnreh-steeples, and pours fourth its glowing melody even from the top
of the Verruca, a ruined medimval fortress which crowns one of the highest summits of the P,san range. ^
■' Generally distributed through Southern Spain,” says Mr. Howard Saunders in • The Ibis for 1871, no
matter how wild the locality, the Bine Rock-Thrush will always be your compamon; and though very shy
during the breeding-season, it is by no means so at other times. I could often have shot specimens; but
this I could never bring myself to d o ; 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 o f the nest and from
the habit the bird has o f making several nests before f in a l ly deciding which it means to occupy. The
young are prized for the cage, but not to the - e extent as in Italy, Malta, and Greece, where fabulous
prices are sometimes given for a good songster. H B . . . ,
Mr Wright informs us that the I Bine 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 o f 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 uoble lad , who considered herself fortunate in securing
one for £ 7 10*.; and two or three pounds is not an unusual price. The male nestlings may easily be distinguished
from the females a t a very early age by their blue wing-coverts.
“ The well-known Blue Thrush," says Mr. Tristram, “ is to be fonnd in Palestine all the year round
wherever stones crop above the surface, whether by the shore o r on the hills, and especially among ruins hut
always solitary. Rarely ever were a male and female to he 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 saud-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 o f 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, Rabliah, or Gadara. The ■ vomitona o f the amphl-
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 his dolorous ditty. Mr. Cochrane and I took a nest with four fresh
eggs on April 2nd, in one of the robbers' caves In the Wady Hama,n, near the Sea oS-Gahlee The nest was
conveniently placed on a shelf far B without any attempt at concealment, and was like the H O B
Blackbird, with mud mingled with the straw, instead of a shell o f cow-dung. The young birds are fledged at
the beginning of May. The eggs are very pale blue, smaller than those of the Thrash.”
The figures represent what I consider to be male and female, drawn from Mentone specimens, of the size
of life.