BIRDS — TURDIDAE TUEDUS. 209 



brown, breast with large hrotun spots.") The large brown spots are not found in fuscescens. 

 Gmelin describes T. minor as "spadiceus, pectore Jlavicante, maculisatris," (reddish brown, breast 

 yellowish with hlach 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 ustidatus 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. sioainsonii,) though well known to 

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

 Audubon. It was given by Swainson as Merula wilsonii, erroneously supposing it to be the 

 species referred to by Bonaparte under this name. His figure of 31. solitaria is very probably 

 this same si^ecies. The figure given by Wilson to accompany his description of Turdus solitarius 

 (pallasii) unquestionably belongs to T. swainsonii. As previously stated, the T. minor o? Gmelia 

 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 

 hrunneus of Boddaert, based on PL enlum. 556, 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 Linnfeus 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, published between 1844 and 1846, Cabanis gives accurate 

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

 had been anticipated by Dr. Brewer iu 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 the 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 Linnasus and 

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

 bon, erroneously supposing it to be the 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 aonalascJika of Gmelin and Musci- 

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

 Eussian 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 Muscicapa guttata of Pallas it is 

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

 27 b 



