Avifauna of Italy. 197 



round the eye ; and ear-feathers with whitish shafts. Sides 

 of throat and breast with dark lanceolate blotches on a whitish 

 ground-colour tinged slightly with yellowish. Abdomen 

 white ; sides of body also whitish in front, with dark lanceo- 

 late and crescentic blotches, greyish behind. Feathers on 

 tibiae and under tail-coverts grey, each of the latter with a 

 large white apical spot. Under wing-coverts whitish. The 

 rectrices and remiges are of the same colour as the back, the 

 former with a lighter inner web. 



Only lately have I been able to examine in German museums 

 specimens of T. sibiricus, and was quite surprised to find 

 that it is a smaller bird than the one I have described, which 

 is quite as large as a Missel-Thrush or a Blackbird. This 

 puzzled me much ; and I began to doubt whether our speci- 

 men was T. sibiricus, a careful comparison with female spe- 

 cimens of which can alone settle the question. Some orni- 

 thologists who have examined it opine that it may be a large 

 T. sibiricus ; but others remain in doubt. Very recently a 

 high authority on ornithic matters shook his head at any 

 such determination, and suggested hybridism as a way to 

 solve the difficulty. But hybridism between which of our 

 Turdi ? ! Could it be an undescribed species ? I might have 

 thought so ; but the supposition of an unknown Thrush in 

 Europe seems too preposterous to be entertained. When I 

 can see my way out of this case, 1 shall hasten to inform my 

 colleagues of the B. O. U. ; but for the present I shall retain 

 the name I first gave to this bird. 



TURDUS DUBIUS, Bcclist. 



A magnificent male of this species was bought in the flesh 

 in the Florence market ; it was shot at Radda, in Chianti 

 (Tuscany), on the 25th of November 1879, and is now in the 

 Italian collection. 



TURDUS VARIUS, Pall. 



Our collection possesses a beautiful male of this fine species, 

 shot in the Tuscan Casentino (Apennines) , at Poggio Scali, on 

 the 14th of October 1873. In the Roman University Museum 



SER. IV. VOL. V. p 



