BIRDS — TUKPIDAE — TDRDUS. 209 



brown, breast witli large brown spots.") Tho large brown spots are not found in fuscescens. 

 Gmelin describes T. minor as "spadicetw!, peclore Jlavicante, maculis atria," (reddish brown, breast 

 yellowish with black spots.) His name is, therefore, clearly to be set aside in the further discus- 

 sion of the question. 



I have not now the means of verifying the accuracy of the reference of Turdus parvus of 

 Selgimann to this species, made by me many years ago ; but if correct, then this name may have 

 to take precedence, unless a true Turdus parvus had been previously described. 



Turdus uslulatus of Nuttall has been mentioned alone by him, and has no synonyms, as far 

 as I can ascertain. By a typographical error the name was printed cestulatus. 



By a remarkable oversight the olive-backed thrush, {T. sivainsonii,) though well known to 

 all of the more recent school of American ornithologists, was not described by either Wilson or 

 Audubon. It was given by Swainson as Merula ivilsonii, erroneously 8up{)0sing it to be the 

 species referred to by Bonaparte under this name. His figure of M. solitaria is very probably 

 this same species. The figure given by Wilson to accompany his description of Turdus solitarius 

 (pallaaii) unquestionably belongs to T. swainsonii. As pi:eviously stated, the T. minor of Gmelin 

 applies in part to this species ; that of Vieillot to this species, in conjunction with T. pallasii. 



In the latter part of 1843 Mr. Giraud, a leading American ornithologist, and author of 

 several important works, published the species as Turdus olivaceus ; and Dr. Brewer, without 

 knowing the fact, gave it the same name in 1844. This has really priority, unless the Turdus 

 brunneus of Boddaert, based on PI. enlura. 550, fig. 2, be really and incontestibly the present 

 species, as claimed by Gray in the Genera of Birds. The term olivaceus, however, had pre- 

 viously been used by Linnjeus and Boddaert, as well as by Lichtenstein and others, in connexion 

 with thrushes, and cannot be retained, unless these are shown to belong to genera other than 

 that of the present species. Not having access at present to the Planches enluminees, I am 

 unable to discuss the value of Boddaert's name. 



In Tschudi's Fauna Peruana, jjublished between 1844 and 1846, Cabanis gives accurate 

 diagnoses of the American thrushes, showing their relations to each other, although in this he 

 had been anticijjated by Dr. Brewer in the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural 

 History for July, 1844. He there applies the name of T. swainsonii to the olive-backed species, 

 which, in tlie present state of our knowledge of the question, must be retained. 



The Turdus pallasii of Cabanis — T. solitarius of Wilson — first received a distinctive name in 

 Wiegmann's Archiv, in 1847. Wilson's name had previously been employed by Linnajus and 

 others for a different thrush. The species was at first called T. minor by Bonaparte and Audu- 

 bon, erroneously supposing it to be tlie bird referred to by Gmelin ; in their later works, how- 

 ever, these authors took Wilson's name. In the article already referred to in Fauna Peruanaj 

 Cabanis identified this species with Muscicapa guttata of Pallas, which, however, he afterwards 

 found to be distinct. 



The Merula silens of Swainson, if really identical with the present species, will take priority 

 over Cabanis' name ; but I am inclined to consider it distinct for reasons named elsewhere. 



The remaining species was named and described by Audubon as Turdus nanus. In his 

 article in the Fauna Peruana, Cabanis considered the Turdus aonalaschka of Gmelin and Musci- 

 capa guttata of Pallas as young birds of the Turdus solitarius of Wilson. The locality — 

 Russian America — and the small size clearly indicate that the names, if belonging to either, 

 apply to the dwarf rather than to the hermit thrush. In the Muscicajja guttata of Pallas it is 

 difiicult to recognize even a young bird of this species — in the " body brown above, spotted 

 27 b 



