CATHARUS. a 
Catharus. 
Catharus meipomene. 
Turdus melpomene, Cas. Mus. Hein. I, 1850, 5 (Xalapa). —Catharus 
melpomene, Scu. P. Z. 8. 1859, 323.—Is. Cat. Am. Birds, 1861, 1, 
No. 1.—Casanis, Jour. 1860, 322.—Saxvin, Ibis, 1860, 29. 
Catharus aurantitrostris, SCLATER, P. Z. 5. 1856, 294 (not of HarTLavs). 
Hab. Mexico (Cordova, Orizaba, Oaxaca) ; Guatemala; Costa Rica. 
Specimens vary somewhat in the shade of coloration and the in- 
tensity of the rufescence of tail and wings. The bill is generally 
(in the dried skin) bright yellow, sometimes orange, a little dusky 
towards the tip above; sometimes this latter shade encroaches on 
the culmen; in one specimen (No. 22,362) the whole upper mandible 
is light brownish, and in No. 2 of Mr. Lawrence’s Collection it is 
nearly as black as in C. occidentalis. Some specimens have a shade 
of grayish in the feathers of the chin; but in none is there any in- 
dication of the yellowish-brown of the jugulum of occ7dentalis. ‘The 
legs are always yellowish, though varying in the shade of this color. 
The rump and tail are always more rufous than the back, as in 
Turdus pallasi and its allies, though the contrast is not so striking. 
A specimen (30,484) from Costa Rica, in imperfect plumage, 
differs in the prevalence of a grayish olive shade in the back, and a 
less intense shade of rufous on the rump and tail.t’ It is not im- 
probable that this may be the true C. aurantiirostris of Hartlaub, 
which is said to differ in the more olive back. Although Hartlaub 
describes the whole upper parts as uniformly olivaceous, including 
the wings and tail, his figure represents the latter as being more 
rufous. 
If the species of Hartlaub and Cabanis should hereafter prove to 
be the same, it is somewhat of a question to which of their names 
the priority should be assigned. The date of the aurantiirostris 
is March, 1850, exactly coeval with Bonaparte’s “¢mmaculatus.” 
The name ‘‘melpomene” appears on page 5, of sig. 1, of Museum 
Heineanum, but without any signature date affixed—this practice 
not having been introduced until the appearance of the fourteenth 
signature, where the date of Jan. 1851 is printed at the bottom of 
page 107. There is nothing whatever to show that even if the first 
signature was published in 1850, it appeared as early as March. 
' Turdus aurantiirostris, HArTLAuUB, Rev. Zool. March, 1850, 158 (Vene- 
zuela); Is. Jard. Cont. Orn. 1851, 80, pl. Ixxii. Catharus aurantiirostris, 
Scrater, P. Z. 8. 1859, 323. Cutharus immaculatus, Bon. Consp. March, 1850, 
278 (Caraccas). 
