12 REVIEW OF AMERICAN BIRDS. [PART I. 
Serves similar. 
| Hylocichla. Smallest species. Bill short, broad at base ; much depressed. 
Tarsi long and slender, longer than middle toe and claw by the additional 
length of the claw; outstretched legs reaching nearly to tip of tail. 
Body slender. Color: above olivaceous or reddish, beneath whitish ; 
breast spotted ; throat without spots. 
Turdus. Bill stouter and higher. Tarsi short, scarcely longer than middle 
toe and claw. Body stout, geverally whitish beneath and spotted. (2d 
quill longer than 5th’). 
Planesticus. Similar to preceding. (2d quill shorter than 5th?). Beneath 
mostly unicolored ; unstreaked except the throat, which is whitish with 
dark streaks. 
Sexes dissimilar. 
Merula. Similar to Turdus. Male usually more or less black, especially on 
the head; females brownish, often with streaked throats. Bill distinctly 
notched. 
. Hesperocichla. Similar to Turdus. Male reddish beneath, with a black 
collar. Bill without notch. } 
Of the preceding sections into which I have divided Turdus, the 
first one is possibly entitled to full generic rank. It is intended to 
include the small North American species, with Turdus mustelinus, 
Gm., at the head as type, which are closely connected on the one side 
with Catharus, by their lengthened tarsi, and with Zurdus by the 
shape of the wing. The bills are shorter, more depressed, and broader 
at base than in typical Turdus, so much so that the species have 
frequently been described under Muscicapa. 
The section Turdus, as well as the entire genus itself, has as its 
type Turdus viscivorus of Europe. We have no native representa- 
tive of this group—one species only, Zwrdus tliacus, coming into 
the American fauna from its occurring in Greenland. 
Planesticus, first announced, as far as I can ascertain, by Bona- 
parte in his Notes on Delattre’s Collection, 1854, 27, appears to have 
“as its type T. jamacensis (T. lereboulleti of Bonaparte, erroneously 
credited to Colombia instead of Jamaica). It is among these species 
that we find the closest relationships to the large European Thrushes, 
as viscivorus, ete. The legs are short and stout. In the best known 
species— 7. migratorius—there is an occasional indication of sepa- 
rate scutelle on the lower part of the tarsi, to which Kaup has 
ealled attention in the Archiv fiir Naturgeschichte. I find the same 
feature in a specimen of 7. viscivorus, No. 18,716, in Z. torquatus, 
18,944, and many other species, and consider it merely a condition 
of immaturity of development. 
