  We study thermodynamic behaviors of the antiferromagnetic zigzag spin chain
in magnetic fields, using the density-matrix renormalization group method for
the quantum transfer matrix. We focus on the thermodynamics of the system near
the critical fields in the ground-state magnetization process($M$-$H$ curve):
the saturation field, the lower critical field associated with excitation gap,
and the field at the middle-field cusp singularity. We calculate magnetization,
susceptibility and specific heat of the zigzag chain in magnetic fields at
finite temperatures, and then discuss how the calculated quantities reflect the
low-lying excitations of the system related with the critical behaviors in the
$M$-$H$ curve.
