Turdus nigrorum Grant, Ibis (1896), 544; Grant and Whitehead,
Ibis (1898), 238, pl. 5, figs. 8 and 9 (eggs); Whitehead, Ibis
(1899), 213 (nest).
Merula nigrorum Sharpe, Hand-List (1903), 4, 119; Oates and Reid,
Cat. Birds' Eggs (1905), 4, pl. 5, fig. 18; McGregor and Worcester,
Hand-List (1906), 83.
Negros (Whitehead).
"Adult male and female.--Above rich dark umber, darkest on the top of
the head; wings and tail brownish black; chin, throat, and chest pale
sooty brown, rather lighter on the breast, flanks, and belly; a band
of white feathers across the vent; under tail-coverts dark brown,
with pale whitish-brown tips. Bill and feet yellow. Male: Length,
241; wing, 124; tail, 96.5; tarsus, 34. Female: Length, 223.5; wing,
119; tail, 91; tarsus, 31.5.
"An immature male has the upper parts much like those of the adult,
but the feathers of the back have indistinct margins of darker color,
the chin and middle of the throat are buff, and the breast and under
parts spotted with black and washed with rufous, shading into tawny
buff on the middle of the belly.
"The Negros blackbird is resident on the volcano of Canloon at an
altitude of from 1,600 to 2,000 meters, and both young birds and eggs
were obtained." (Grant.)
A nest containing two "much incubated" eggs was taken by Whitehead
on April 12, 1896, and another nest with two young birds was found on
the 21st of the same month. The eggs are described as follows: "Shape
ovate. Ground-color very pale green; one egg very thickly mottled
with brick-red, almost hiding the ground-color; the second blotched
toward the larger end and more thinly marked over the rest of the shell
showing the very pale red-lilac clouded under-markings. As compared
with eggs of the common blackbird, the above are very much redder, and
closely resemble those of Turdus simillimus." (Grant and Whitehead.)