LOUISIANA WATERTHRU8H 493 



their study of the characters involved in these variations they conclude 

 that a nev7 name is desirable for the waterthrushes that breed in 

 British Columbia. They summarize the subspecific characters of the 

 new race as follows: "Dorsum between olivaceous black and dark 

 grayish olive ; underparts with yellowish averaging less than in S. n. 

 noveboracensis but more than in S. n. notabiUs; wing and tail aver- 

 aging small ; tarsus as in notabiUs^ 



They give the breeding range as "central interior British Columbia, 

 extending with some diminution of characters through northern Brit- 

 ish Columbia." 



Its migration extends as far south as Panamd. 



SEIURUS MOTACILLA (Vieillot) 



LOUISIANA WATERTHRUSH 



Plates 60, 61 



HABTTS 



The earlier ornithologists confused the two waterthrushes. Neither 

 Wilson nor Nuttall recognized two species, and their accounts evi- 

 dently referred partly to one and partly to the other. For example, 

 Wilson (1832) speaks of one as passing through Pennsylvania to the 

 north, and mentions the other as living in the cane brakes and swamps 

 of Louisiana ; both of these he called "Water Thrush — Turdus aquati- 

 cus''' ; but his description fits the Louisiana waterthrush, as we now 

 know it. Nuttall's (1832) account is similar, though he uses the name 

 noveboracensis^ and his description follows Wilson. Audubon (1841) 

 evidently recognized and figured both species, though his figure of the 

 northern bird is apparently notabilis^ and most of his remarks seem 

 to refer to motcicilla. Both species, however, had been recognized and 

 named previously by European ornithologists, as shown in their 

 present names. 



The haunts of the Louisiana waterthrush have been variously 

 described. Dr. Edgar A. Mearns (1879) writes: "Its notes cannot be 

 dissociated from the sound of gurgling, rushing waters. * * * 

 Even a casual allusion to this little bird recalls, to the mind of the 

 collector, a bright picture of clear mountain streams, with their falls 

 and eddies, their dams of rocks and fallen tree-trunks, their level 

 stretches flowing over bright, pebbly bottoms, with mossy banks and 

 rocky ferneries, and their darting minnows and dace ; for only in such 

 wild localities is the Water Wagtail at home." 



Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway (1874) state that in the Wabash 

 Valley, where it is an abundant sununer resident, "it inhabits the 

 dampest situations in the bottom-lands, the borders of creeks, lagoons, 



