804 MR. H. SEEBOHM ON SOME ASIATIC THRUSHES. [Dec. I 6, 



panied by a real coincidence of species, proposed (J. A. S. Beng. xi. 

 p. 460) the name of Turdus modestus as a substitute for Turdus 

 unicolor, "Gould, nee Tickell" apud Blytb. In 1847 Blyth discovered 

 that he had fallen into precisely the same blunder that he had tried 

 to correct in Gould ; for the name T. modestus had already been ap- 

 plied by Eyton, in 1839 (P. Z. S. vii. p. 103), to a different species of 

 Thrush. Blyth accordingly proceeded (J. A. S. Beng. xvi. p. 144) to 

 give a third name, Geocichla dissimilis, to this species. In doing so, 

 however, he further complicated the question by adding to his new 

 name the description of the immature male or female of anew species 

 which he erroneously imagined to be the adult male of T. unicolor, 

 Gould. 



In 1850 Bonaparte described what he considered to be a new 

 species of Thrush from a skin in the Leyden Museum labelled 

 " Central Asia." He gave it (Consp. Gen. Av. i. p. 273) the name of 

 Turdus pelios, but afterwards, in 1854 (Compt. Rend, xxxviii. p. 5), 

 carelessly identified an Abyssinian Thrush (Turdus icterorhynchus, 

 Pr. Wiirt.) with his description of P. pelios, and needlessly threw 

 doubt on the correctness of the Leyden locality. The skin in the 

 Leyden Museum is undistinguishable from the female or immature 

 male which Blyth described as T. dissimilis. 



After a lapse of twelve years Jerdon, in his ' Birds of India,' further 

 complicated matters by erroneously identifying T. dissimilis (Blyth) 

 with T. cardis, Temm., including it in his work (i. p. 521) as Tur- 

 dulus cardis (Temm.). 



The following year Sclater described (Ibis, 1863, p. 196) a new 

 species of Thrush from Amoy as Turdus hortulorum, the male 

 (doubtless immature) and female of which are undistinguishable from 

 T. dissimilis (Blyth). 



Seven years later Cabanis received a Thrush from Dr. Dybowsky, 

 collected in the valley of the Avnoor (likewise undistinguishable from 

 T. dissimilis (Blyth), and identified it with T. pelios, Bonap., point- 

 ing out (Journ. Orn. 1870, p. 238) the error into which Bonaparte 

 afterwards fell. 



Further complications now followed thick and fast. In 1871 

 Hume described a new Thrush from Assam (Ibis, p. 411) as Geo- 

 cichla tricolor. In 1873 Swinhoe described a new Thrush from 

 Cheefoo (Ann. Nat. Hist. ser. 4, vol. xii. p. 374) as Turdus camp- 

 be.lli. In the following year, forgetting that he had described it in 

 the 'Annals,' he redescribed the same skin in 'The Ibis' (1874, 

 p. 444, pi. xiv.) as Turdus chrysopleurus. 



My first attempt to unravel this complicated tangle of facts was 

 to draw the inference that whereas in the nearly allied species 

 T. cardis, Temm., T. obscurus, Gmel., T. pallidus, Gmel., and 

 T. unicolor, Tick., the females and immature males have streaks or 

 spots on the throat, which disappear in the fully adult male, it was 

 highly probable that the fully adult male of T. dissimilis, Blyth, 

 would also have an unspotted throat. Having arrived at this con- 

 clusion, it was an easy step to identify T. campbelli, Swinh., or 

 T. tricolor (Hume), as the fully adult male. Hume's description 



