■^ 



19 



REVIEW OP AMERICAN BIRDS. 



11 



[part I. 



bires similtir, 



Hylocichla. Smalhnt Bpeoiea. Bill sliort, broad at ba? e : tnnch depressed. 



Tttfrti long and Hlender, Iciger than middlo tO') uiid olaw bv the additional 



lengtl) of the claw ; outslietched legs reaching nearly to tip of tail. 



• Body slendei. Color: above olivaceoua or redtlish, buueath whitish; 



brtast spotted ; throat without spota. 



Turdus. Bill atouter and higher. Tarsi short, scaroelj lonjjer than niiddK 

 to" and claw. Bo<ly stout, g'juerally whitish beneath and spotted. (2d 

 quill longer than 5th?). 



Flanesticus. Similar to preceding. (2<1 quill shorter than 5th ?). Beneath 

 mostly unicolored ; unstreaked except the throat, which is whitish with 

 dark streaks. 



Sexes dissimilar. 

 Morula. Similar to Tardus. Male usually more or less Mack, especially on 

 the head ; females brownish, often with streaked throats. Bill distinctly 

 notched. 



Hesperocichla. Similar to Turdus. Male reddish beneath, with a black 

 collar. Bill without notch. 



I 





Of the prnceding sections into which I have divided Turdus, the 

 first one is possibly entitled to full generic rank. It is intended to 

 include the small North American si)ecies, with Turdus mustelivus, 

 Gm., at the head as type, which are closely connected on the one side 

 with Catharus, by their lengthened tarsi, and with Turdus l)y the 

 shape of the wing. The bills are shorter, more depressed, and broader 

 at base than in typical Turdus, so much so that the species have 

 frequently been described under Muscicapa. 



Tl\p section Turdus, as well as the entire genus itself, has as its 

 type Turdus viscivorus of Europe. "We have no native represeiita- 

 tive of this group — one species only, Turdus iliacus, coming into 

 the American fauna from i*3 occurring in Greenland. 



Planesticus, first announced, as far as I can ascertain, by Bona- 

 parte in his Notes on Delattre's Collection, 1854, 2t, appears to have 

 as its type T. jamacensis (T. lerehoulleti of Bonaparte, erroneously 

 credited to Colombia instead of Jamaica). It is among these species 

 that we find the closest relationships to the large European Thrushes, 

 as viscivorus, etc. The legs are short and stout. In the best known 

 species — T. migratorius — there is an occasional indication of sepa- 

 rate scutellaj on the lower part of the tarsi, to which Kaiip has 

 called attention in the Archiv fiir Naturgeschichte. I find the same 

 feature in a specimen of T. viscivorus, No. 18,716, in T. lorquatiix, 

 18,944, and many other species, and consider it merely a cuuditiou 

 of immaturity of development. 



