BREWSTER: BIRDS OF THE CAPE REGION, LOWER CALIFORNIA. 213 
based is altogether too indefinite to be determinable. If his bird was really a 
Hylocichla at all— which is doubtful —it is most likely to have been the ~ 
Gray-cheeked Thrush. The name guttata of Pallas, on the other hand, rests on 
a careful description, which, although taken from a young bird, unmistakably 
relates to the Alaska Hermit Thrush. 
Mr. W. H. Osgood has lately separated} this bird into two forms, a gray 
one, for which he retains the name aonalaschkae, and of which he has examined 
summer specimens from Nushagak, Kukak Bay, and Kadiak Island, Alaska, 
and a browner, more richly colored bird which breeds on the ‘islands and 
coasts of British Columbia and southeastern Alaska ’’ and which he proposes to 
call verecunda. Still a third form — slevini — said to be the grayest of them 
all and to inhabit in summer the “cloudy coast belt’ of California, from south- 
ern Monterey County northward, locally at least, to Sonoma County ” has been 
since named and described by Mr. Grinnell. I have a large series of Dwarf 
Thrushes from California, Oregon, and British Columbia, but few, if any, of 
them can be safely assumed to have been taken on their breeding grounds. 
Nevertheless, they apparently represent all three of the forms just mentioned. 
With slevinz it is unnecessary to deal in this connection, for it is not known 
to have occurred in the Cape Region. Aonalaschkae — or guttata, as I prefer 
to call it —and verecunda seem to me sufficiently unlike to be recognized as 
distinct subspecies, provided they really occupy different breeding grounds; 
but verecunda, as Mr. Osgood evidently suspected might prove to be the case, 
is nothing more nor less than the nanus of Audubon. I am aware, of course, 
that several ornithologists have argued *— and with some plausibility because 
of the lack of definite evidence to the contrary —that this name was based 
primarily on an exceptionally small specimen of the Hermit Thrush of eastern 
North America and not on the skin which Audubon mentions having received 
from the Columbia River. Probably no one of these writers was aware that 
this skin is still in existence —in the collection of the Museum of Comparative 
Zodlogy. It bears three labels. On the original one is inscribed in Audubon’s 
own handwriting, “ Turdus terrestris. Aud. Columbia River,” to which is added, 
in Mr. John Cassin’s hand and in red ink, “J. J. Audubon’s label.” The 
second label is evidently Mr. Cassin’s, and reads, “ John Cassin — Philadelphia 
— 1864. Turdus nanus, Audubon, Dr. J. K. Townsend’s collection Mr. 
John G. Bell,* Columbia River.” The third label is that of the Museum 
of Comparative ZoGlogy, which acquired the specimen many years ago by 
exchange with Brown University. 
1 Auk, XVIII. 1901, 183-185. 
2 Tbid., 258-260. 
3 Cf. Brewer, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. XVII. 1875, 488, footnote; Coues, 
Birds Col. Valley, 1878, 22-25; Osgood, Loc. cit. 
* Mr. Bell could not well have had anything to do with the capture of this 
specimen, but Mr. Cassin may have obtained it from him. When I first made his 
acquaintance, some thirty years ago, he still had several of Audubon’s skins in his 
possession. 
