1887.] MR. H. SEEBOHM ON A NEW MERULA. 



55/ 



13. Description of a supposed new Species of the G-enus 

 Merula from South America. By Henry Seebohm, F.Z.S. 



[Beceiyed June 23, 1887.] 



In the years 1845-47 the world was circumnavigated hy the 

 Danish ship ' Galathea,' whose adventures are narrated by Capt. 

 Steen Bille in a book bearing the title " Beretning om Corvetten 

 Galathea'sReiseomkringJorden"(Copenhagen, 1849-51). Dr.Behn 

 was the zoologist of the expedition, and amongst other things made 

 a collection of birds, which appears to have been buried for forty 

 years in the museum of the Zoologischer Institut in Kiel. 



In the months of July and August 1847, Dr. Behn appears to 

 have travelled in the valley of the Parana in South America, for on 

 the 10th of August he shot an example of Turdus albiventris at 

 Jaragua, having previously shot an example of the same species on 

 the Uth of July in the valley of the Rio Grande in the Province of 

 Sao Paulo. Two days earlier (on the 9th of July) he appears to 

 have been at a place called Jutuba, which is presumably in the same 

 valley of Southern Brazil. Here he obtained a Thrush which 

 appears to belong to an undescribed species. 



I am indebted to the kindness of Herr Paul Leverkiihn for an 

 opportunity of examining the collection of Thrushes in the Museum 

 at Kiel. Professor Mobius, the Director of the Zoological Institute, 

 has placed the birds in the collection in the hands of this 

 gentleman for examination and determination. 



Herr Leverkiihn proposes to call this new species of Thrush 



Merula subalaris, sp. nov. 



Similis M. nigricipiti, sed axillarihus et suhalaribus alhis ; gula 

 et subcaudalibus albescentioribus ; pileo vix nigrescente. 



The skin is marked a male, and has the throat white streaked with 

 black as in M. nigriceps and M. reevii. There can be little doubt 

 that, like the two latter species, which are its nearest allies, and like 

 M.jlavipes and M. leucops, which are its next nearest relations., the 

 new species M. subalaris has an olive-brown female. 



There is a good figure of M. nigriceps in P. Z. S. 1874, pi. Ixiv., 

 which shows the nearly black crown of that species, but does not 

 display the slate-grey axillaries and under wing-coverts, the two 

 most striking characters which distinguish it from its eastern ally, 

 in which the crown is a scarcely darker slate-grey than the rest of 

 the upper parts, and the axillajjea—ajid^ under wing-coverts are, 

 many of them, pure white, y^^^* " 



Proc. Zool. Soc— 1887, No. XXXVII. 37 



