56 BIRDS OF ILLINOIS. 



Adult in fdtt and winter'. Above darker, more umber, brown; jugulum and lower part 

 and sides of throat deeper buff, with much darker spots. 



The general appearance of this bird at first glance is more that 

 of T. ustulatus than true T. fuscescens, the upper parts and anterior 

 lower parts being quite similarly colored. A close examination, how- 

 ever, immediately reveals radical differences, the most important of 

 which is the total absence of any light orbital ring, which is always 

 present, and very distinct, in ustulatus. The wings and tail, instead 

 of being appreciably more rufescent than the back and rump are, 

 on the other hand, less so ; the buff of the jugulum gives way very 

 abruptly to the ash-gray on the sides of the breast, and the spots 

 end quite as abruptly, the breast being plain ash-gray laterally, and 

 white medially, with very indistinct spots of grayish between the 

 white and the gray. In ustulatus the sides are decidedly brown, with 

 very distinct transverse spots of a darker shade of the same color 

 entirely across the breast. Another excellent character consists in 

 the color of the axillars and lining of the wing, which are light 

 grayish in the present bird, and deep brownish buff in ustulatus. 



The differences from typical fuscescens of the Atlantic States, as 

 indicated in the above diagnosis, are exceedingly constant. 



A specimen from Chicago, 111., in the collection of H. K. Coale, 

 of that city, (No. 1568, Coll. H. K. C., Sept. 16), is referable to 

 this race, and is evidently a fall straggler from the Rocky Mountain 

 district. It is even more olive above than most specimens from 

 that region, having almost exactly the same shade of color as a fall 

 specimen of T. swainsonii from Massachusetts, the latter, however, 

 an unusually brown example. The entire absence of any light or- 

 bital ring, the narrow, almost linear, streaks of the jugulum, and 

 the peculiar proportions, however, refer it at once to fuscescens. 



This form was named salicicolus on account of its marked predi- 

 lection for willow thickets, to which, along the streams in the val- 

 leys and lower canons of the Rocky Mountain region, it is chiefly 

 confined during the breeding season. 



The Willow Thrush is a purely accidental visitor to the country 

 east of the Mississippi River, its occurrence in Illinois resting upon 

 the capture of a single specimen in Chicago, by Mr. Henry K. Coale, 

 September 16, 1877, as noted above. (See " Nuttall Bulletin," Oct., 

 1883, p. 239.) 



