HISTORY OF THE HYLOCICHL.E 25 



being a thorouglily " made up" species. The diagnosis given 

 is too short to answer any purpose, and, in fact, applies almost 

 equally well to several different species of Hylocichla. His 

 quotations are of Brisson, Buffon, Pennant, Edwards, Catesby, 

 and Latham, whose several descriptions are those of different 

 species. To take only two of them : Pennant's " Little 

 Thrush" was the species now known as T. sicainsom ; while 

 Latham's '' Little Thrush " was T. fuscescens. The natural 

 result of Gmelin's compilation in this case was that his name 

 minor has been applied repeatedly to each one of at least three 

 species, namely, T. pallasi, T. swainsom, and T. fuscescens. 



In 1827, William Swainson described a variety of the Hermit 

 Thrush from Mexico, under the name of Merula silens. This is 

 the same bird afterward named auduboni by Professor Baird — 

 the name silens being pre-occupied in the genus for another 

 species, Vieillot having first applied the term silens to the 

 musteUmis of Wilson, which is the fuscescens of Stephens. 



This' sketch of the early history of the Hermit Thrush's 

 troubles in the way of a name may be continued with a similar 

 account of the two most nearly allied species, to avoid the neces- 

 sity of again recurring to such dry and uninviting matters. We 

 will first take up the Olive-backed Thrush, T. sioainsoni of most 

 late authors. 



The earliest name of supposed applicability to the Olive- 

 backed Thrush is derived from Buffon's Grive de la Caroline, as 

 described by that author, and as figured in the Planches Enlu- 

 minees (pi. 556, fig. 2). This figure became the exclusive basis 

 of two different names ; for P. L. S. Miiller, in his Supplement 

 to Linnteus' Systema Natura?, of date 1776, at page 140, 

 named it Turdus caroUnus ; and P. Boddaert, in his rare Ta- 

 bleau (1783) of the Planches Enluminees, page 32, called it 

 Turdus hrunneus. G. E. Gray, in the Genera of Birds, claims 

 that the name hrunneus should stand for the species ; this could 

 not have been, even were it not anticipated by MUller's name ; 

 for it so happens that Buffon's figure, as Mr. Cassin has re- 

 marked, is one of the few of the whole series of Planches Enlu- 

 minees that is utterly unrecognizable. It may have been either 

 one of the smaller Thrushes, if not some other bird ; and the 

 reference is entirely out of the question as the basis of a species. 

 Turdus "carolinus" I have seen nowhere except in Miiller; 

 T. " brunneus " is used by Dr. Brewer in 1852, but for a differ- 

 ent s^H^cics, namely, T. fuscescens. 



