12 REVIEW OF AMERICAN BIRDS. [PART I. 



Sexes similar. 

 Hylocichla. Smallest species. Bill short, broad at base ; much depressed. 

 Tarsi long and slender, longer than middle toe and claw by the additional 

 length of the claw ; outstretched legs reaching nearly to tip of tail. 

 Body slender. Color: above olivaceous, or reddish, beneath whitish; 

 breast spotted ; throat without spots. 



Turdus. Bill stouter and higher. Tarsi short, scarcely longer than middle 

 toe and claw. Body stout, geoerally whitish beneath and spotted. (2d 

 quill longer than 5th ?). 



Planesticus. Similar to preceding. (2d quill shorter than 5th ?). Beneath 

 mostly unicolored ; uustreaked except the throat, which is whitish with 

 dark streaks. 



Sexes dissimilar. 

 Merula. Similar to Turdus. Male usually more or less black, especially on 

 the head ; females brownish, often with streaked throats. Bill distinctly 

 notched. 



Hesperocichla. Similar to Turdus. Male reddish beneath, with a black 

 collar. Bill without notch. 



Of the preceding sections into which I have divided Turdus, the 

 first one is possibly entitled to full generic rank. It is intended to 

 include the small North American species, with Turdus mustelinus, 

 Gm., at the head as type, which are closely connected on the one side 

 with Catharus, by their lengthened tarsi, and with Turdus by the 

 shape of the wing. The bills are shorter, more depressed, and broader 

 at base than in typical Turdus, so much so that the species have 

 frequently been described under Muscicapa. 



The section Turdus, as well as the entire genus itself, lias as its 

 type Turdus viscivorus of Europe, We have no native representa- 

 tive of this group — one species only, Turdus iliacus, coming into 

 the American fauna from its occurring in Greenland. 



Planesticus, first announced, as far as I can ascertain, by Bona- 

 parte in his Notes on Delattre's Collection, 1854, 27, appears to have 

 as its type T. jamacensis (T. lerehoulleti of Bonaparte, erroneously 

 credited to Colombia instead of Jamaica). It is among these species 

 that we find the closest relationships to the large European Thrushes, 

 as viscivorus, etc. The legs are short and stout. In the best known 

 species — T. migratorius — there is an occasional indication of sepa- 

 rate scutellce on the lower part of the tarsi, to which Kaup has 

 called attention in the Archiv fiir Naturgeschichte. I find the same 

 feature in a specimen of T. viscivorus, No. 18,116, in T. torquaius, 

 18,944, and many other species, and consider it merely a condition 

 of immaturity of development. 



