TURDINiE. 





'^^>l 



WHITE'S THRUSH. 



TuRDUS VARius, Pallas. 



This boldly-marked species, rather larger than the Missel-Thrush, 

 belongs to a group known as the ' Ground ' Thrushes (GeoaWi/a), 

 characterized by a partiality for woodland glades, where insects, 

 their principal food, are obtained among the dead leaves on the 

 humid soil. Owing to this habit, their large size, mottled plumage, and 

 low undulating flight, several of the White's Thrushes obtained in this 

 country have at first been mistaken for Woodcocks. The earliest 

 recorded British example was shot in January, 1828, in Hampshire; 

 receiving a scientific as well as a trivial name in honour of White of 

 Selborne, from Eyton, who supposed the species to be undescribed. 

 Others have since been obtained in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, 

 Gloucestershire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Yorkshire, and Durham ; once in 

 Berwickshire; and in Ireland in counties Cork, Longford, and Mayo. 

 Most of these occurrences have been in the winter, and only one 

 in October ; but on Heligoland about a dozen have been recorded : 

 in September and October, and on the return migration up to the 

 23rd of April. On the Continent, stragglers have been obtained, 

 mostly in autumn, from Norway and Sweden southwards to Italy 

 and the foot of the Pyrenees. The true home of White's, or as it 



