508 J- A. ALLEN ON BIRDS 



that the variations in size and proportions, both of which Prof. Baird supposed to furnish 

 valid distinctions, are as inconstant as color, and do not by any means accord with the 

 variations in color, the larger size accompanying the ashy-olivaceous tints, and the smaller 

 the rufous-olivaceous, as his diagnoses in "Birds of North America" (P. E. E. Eep. IX, 

 217) would have them. At the Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, I had, 

 last season, an opportunity to examine some twelve or fifteen authentic specimens of T. 

 "Alicice," including specimens from about Chicago, the locality whence "Alicice" was first 

 described, and which, I was told, were labelled by the late E. Kennicott, as well as others 

 from various parts of North America, including some from La Pierre House, Fort Anderson, 

 and other extremely northern localities, which had been received by the Academy from 

 the Smithsonian Institution, and were labelled in the handwriting of Prof. Baird. These, as 

 already stated, bear out our conclusions published in the Proceedings of the Essex Institute 

 as cited above. The intermediate stages are evidently very perplexing to those who con- 

 sider T. " Swainsoni" and T. "Alicia" as two distinct species, more than half the labels of the 

 Smithsonian specimens in the Chicago Academy and in the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology, being written " T. Swainsonu?", or " T. Alicice?", while in addition to the query, 

 the word " hybrid " or " hybrid ? " is often added. 



We may also add that instead of T. "Alicice" being restricted in its range to the Mis- 

 sissippi Valley, as was at first supposed, it comes from every part of North America inhab- 

 ited by T. Swainsoni, which at different seasons is nearly the whole continent; thus Dr. Coues 

 gives it from the District of Columbia and Labrador, and others from other points in the 

 Atlantic States, while I have found it as common in Western New York as in Massachu- 

 setts ; it is common in the collections made about Great Slave Lake, along the Mackenzie 

 River, and at Fort Youkon on the Youkon River. 



Prof. Baird mentions, in his "Eeview of American Birds " (p. 21), as "a very remarkable 

 circumstance, that for two or three years past it has been more abundant around Washing- 

 ton than Swainsonii itself." In the same connection he alludes to Dr. Coues finding it 

 " abundant in Labrador." but at the same time supposes that during these same years I 

 have mistaken something else for it in Massachusetts, and so have not seen, he says, " what 

 I call T. Alicise." ! 



[Since the above was written, Mr. E. A. Samuels has published, in the "American Natur- 

 alist" for June of the present year (Vol. II, p. 218), 1 a notice of the occurrence of the 

 "Dwarf Thrush (Tardus nanus) in Massachusetts." Some months since, I had the pleasure 

 of examining the specimen alluded to, and unhesitatingly referred it to Turclus Swainsoni; 

 it differs from the average of specimens only in its somewhat smaller size, and in certain 

 very distinct marks of immaturity. Through the kindness of Mr. L. L. Thaxter, the owner 

 of the specimen, I have since had the opportunity of reexamining it, the second examina- 

 tion confirming this opinion. I am hence not surprised that Mr. Samuels (see his account) 

 found it so distinct from Turclus Pallasi, with which alone he seems to have compared it ; 

 but his description, though in the main accurate, contains, in the statement that the color 

 becomes " paler on the rump to the upper tail coverts, which are rufous," a tangible and rather 

 important error, inasmuch as there is no very appreciable difference of color in the different 

 portions of the dorsal plumage, which is of the general uniform character peculiar to T. 

 Swainsoni, with no approach to the contrast between different regions seen in T. Pallasi, 



1 I learn that the same account also occurs in the second edition of Mr. Samuels " Ornithology and Oology of New England." 



