TURDID^B THE THBUSHES. 61 



A specimen said to be from San Francisco (No. 39468 ; F. Bisch- 

 off) agrees exactly with eastern specimens. There may be an 

 error in the locality, or it may be an accidental straggler.* Three 

 specimens from the Yukon region in Alaska (50146, Kamen- 

 sichta, May 31, W. H. Dall; 73227, Ft. Yukon, June 22, L. 

 M. Turner; and 81106, Anvik, lower Yukon, May or June, E. W. 

 Nelson), are more grayish, like Rocky Mountain examples. 



Extralimital specimens are from Tehuantepec, Guatemala, Costa 

 Rica, and Ecuador (55335, Archidona, Rio Napo; Orton). They agree 

 entirely with North American specimens. 



The Olive-backed Thrush, or "Swamp Robin" as it is familiarly 

 known in New England, is another of the species which in most 

 parts of the United States where it is found occurs simply as a 

 migrant. It breeds from northern New England north well into the 

 more southern parts of the region inhabited by T. alicia, both 

 species often breeding in the same localities and yet each retaining 

 its special characteristics of habits and notes a fact sufficient to 

 at once dispose of any theory of their representing races of one 

 species. In the higher mountains, this species breeds far southward, 

 Wilson having found its nest and eggs on the high lands of north- 

 ern Georgia, while in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado Mr. Hen- 

 shaw found it abundant, in May, in the vicinity of Fort Garland. 



The song of this species, according to the writer's experience in 

 the mountains of Utah, is simple and brief, but very sweet, though 

 less so than that of either T. fuscescens salicicolus or T. aonalaschkce. 



Mr. H. K. Coale informs me that several specimens shot in May, 

 1883, were about a dead cow, where they had probably been at- 

 tracted by the supply of maggots. 



The nest of the Olive-backed Thrush is usually built in bushes 

 or low trees, near or along the banks of streams. Those found 

 by the writer in the mountains of Utaht were in willows overhanging 

 or growing very near to the banks of a mountain brook at heights 

 varying from three to ten, but usually about seven, feet from the 

 ground. In no instance were there more than four eggs in a nest. 

 The composition of the nest of this species (as built in New Bruns- 

 wick) is thus described by Mr. Chamberlain : I "In a specimen of 

 this nest before me coarse grass is the predominating material in 



* The "make" of this skin is precisely that of specimens prepared by the same col- 

 lector at Peoria, Illinois. 



t Ornithology of the 40th Parallel, pp. 397, 398. 



: Canadian Sportsman and Naturalist, Jan.. 1883, p. 20. 



