60 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



is the only form of the small thrushes that is found in cen- 

 tral California as late as November. 



The eggs of T. ustidattis are pale bluish-green, and always 

 spotted, I believe, in this latter feature differing from the 

 ej^jgs of T. aonalasclikcv and T. a. aiidtihoid. The song of 

 T. nstalatus was well described by Nuttall as resembling 

 "irdt-2vif, f villia-f villia'\ Prof. O. B. Johnson, in "Birds 

 of the AVillamette Valley," published in the American Nat- 

 uralist, July, 1880, p. 486, says: "The alarm note is a 

 short whistle ' whoet,' identical with that of a person attract- 

 ing the attention of a dog; the call-note is a tremulous 

 ' lohaat-r-r-r ' in the same key as the alarm note, only ending 

 in a trill." He describes the song as "A peculiar whistle, 

 ascending a scale of four notes, and sounds like holsey — 

 govendy — govindy — goveendy.'' Dr. Suckley says : "Its voice 

 is a low, soft, sad, lonely whistle, generally confined to one 

 note about three seconds in length," from which I infer that 

 he did not hear the full song of T. tistidatus. Most authors 

 describe its notes in such general, indefinite terms as to be 

 useless for purposes of identification. The notes on this 

 species, T. stvainsonii and T. '' nanus ^' in Ornithology of 

 California are very misleading. (See Dr. Cooper's correct- 

 ions in these Proceedings, Vol. 6, 1875, pp. 190-192.) 



2. Turdus ustulatus swainsonii (Cab.) 



Olive-backed Thrush. — Habitat, Eastern North America 

 and westward to the Upper Columbia Biver and East Hum- 

 boldt Mountains, straggling to the Pacific Coast. Breeds 

 mostly north of the United States. (Check List of the 

 American Ornithologists' Union.) 



In 1885 or 1886 I enquired of Prof. Ridgway if he knew 

 that this thrush had been collected in California, to which 

 he replied — "We have in the Smithsonian Collection but 

 one specimen so labelled, and this I find, after a careful ex- 

 amination, is T. tistidatus in somewhat Avorn and faded 

 plumage." In the summer of 1888 I collected three speci- 



