26 HISTORY OF THE HYLOCICHL^ 



Pennant, as we have already seen, described the Olive- 

 backed Thrush ia 1785 under the name of the " Little Thrush", 

 in this differing from Latham, whose " Little Thrush" was the 

 T.fuscescens. But both Pennant and Latham, in their respect- 

 ive works, introduce a " Brown Thrush", which afterward be- 

 came the exclusive basis of Turdus fuscus of Gmelin. That 

 this bird is certainly no other than the Olive-backed is evident 

 from the following description, quoted from Pennant: — " Thrush 

 with the head, neck, back, cheeks, coverts, and tail, of an olive- 

 brown : primaries dusky : breast and belly of a dirty white, 

 marked with great brown spots : legs dusky. Size of the 

 former [L c, the Tawny Thrush, T. mustelinus Gm.] ; and a 

 native of the same country [Xew York]." Here is a per- 

 fectly accurate and diagnostic phrase : the name Turdusfuscus, 

 based upon it, would therefore require adoption, were it not 

 anticipated in point of date by Turdus fuscus of Milller, Syst. 

 Nat. Suppl. 1776, p. 142, which is an altogether different bird, 

 described from the Cape of Good Hope. So this name fuscus 

 of Gmelin is thrown out of the case. 



In 1831, Swainson and Eichardson described the Olive- 

 backed Thrush as Merula wilsoni. This, however, was not an 

 original imposition of a name, but merely an erroneous identi- 

 fication of Bonaparte's Turdus wilsonii, which latter was the 

 mustelinus Wils. («ec Gmelin, i. e., the fuscescens Steph.). 



A few year^ subsequently, in 1814, Mr. J. P. Giraud and Dr. 

 T. M. Brewer, independently of each other, applied to the Olive- 

 backed Thrush the name of oUvaceus — appropriate indeed, and 

 only exceptionable in the fact that there were already one or 

 two entirely different species called Turdus oUvaceus. The 

 name therefore cannot stand in this connection, unless the 

 earlier birds of the same name are shown to belong to a differ- 

 ent genus. 



In this evident lack of a tenable specific name for the Olive- 

 backed Thrush, Dr. Cabauis proposed to dedicate it to Swain- 

 son, and the term Turdus swainsoni has been almost exclusively 

 adopted for the species of late years. 



Two varieties of this species, called respectively ustulatus and 

 alieicc, have been named, but do not require comment here. 



Turning now to the Tawny or Wilson's Thrush, or Veery, as 

 it is indifferently called, we find what is probably the earliest 

 indication of this species iu the "Little Thrush" of Latham 

 (but not of Pennant), on which Gmelin based his T. minor iu 



