^i8q^^J OiiKiuioLSKR, A Nciv North American Tlirinli. 'JQ^ 



of zoology, and its adherents include some eminent, and even 

 "educated" naturalists abroad. Neither is it evident that its 

 "baneful teachings" and "advocacy of illiteracy" have had, to 

 any perceptable degree, any demoralizing infiuence upon the ris- 

 ing generation of naturalists, or perceptably deteriorated the 

 quality of their spelling when it has fallen to their lot to coin 

 new names for the designation of newly discovered genera and 

 species. 



Because the acceptance of Canon XL is not universal among 

 naturalists is no reason for its elimination from the Code ; the 

 progress it has made and the good that has already resulted from 

 it is rather something for which we should be grateful. It is of 

 course not compulsory, as no such rule can be arbitrarily enforced ; 

 nor can Mr. Elliot ever expect that any rule for even such a 

 simple matter as the transliteration of Greek and other names 

 into Latin, to say nothing of the construction of names according 

 to undeviating methods, will ever be in universal use. It is even 

 " LTtopian" to expect all good spellers to spell alike. Therefore 

 we may well rest content to tolerate in our Check-List a few mal- 

 formations like Leptotila and PedioccEte.s, and even such an inept 

 name as cafer for an American bird, than to open wide the door 

 to the vacillating sway of the horrified emender. 



DESCRIPTION OF A NEW NORTH AMERICAN 

 THRUSH. 



BY HARRY C. OBERHOLSER. 



The Olive-backed Thrushes inhabiting the Rocky Mountain 

 region of the United States prove to be subspecifically separable 

 from the eastern race, to which they have heretofore been referred. 

 The name swaifisonii has undoubted application to the form from 

 eastern North America, since Cabanis states ^ the habitat of the 



' Tschudi's Fauna Peruana, 1845-6, 190. 



