369 



light dirty ferruginous, shaded gradually into the darker color of the 

 hypochondriacs; tibiae, ashy; under surface of wings and tail, pale 

 wood-brown, with the inner webs of all the remiges except the first, 

 conspicuously margined with white, broadest next the base, occupying 

 the basal half of the second, and graduall}^ encroaching on the other, 

 so as to extend the greater part of their length. 



$ adult resembles the male in dimensions and color. 



Young, not quite fully fledged, though able to fly ; present the usual 

 character of young birds in the downiness of the feathers, shortness of 

 the bill, and apparent large size of the legs and feet. The dark color 

 of the lores and frontal line is quite distinct ; the whole upper parts 

 brownish ash, darker than in the adult, and with scarcely an indica- 

 tion of any difference in color on the crown. The whitish stripe on the 

 side of the head is prolonged so as to form an interrupted collar, 

 though in its posterior portion appearing as a slight wash of hoary 

 rather than white : beneath, the rufous is less distinct. 



Remarks on the Genus Galeoscoptes Cabanis, with the 

 Characters of two new Genera, and a Description of 



TURDUS PLUMBEUS LiN. By HeNRY BrYANT. 



The genus Galeoscoptes, including Turdus rubripes Temm. and 

 Turdus plumbeus Lin., was established by Cabanis, on Turdus caroli- 

 nensis Lin., which had been already j^laced in the genus Mimus of Boie. 

 I have been unable to procure the original description of the genus in 

 the Museum Heineanum, but presume that the same characters are 

 given by Prof Baird in the ninth volume of the Pacific-Railroad Re- 

 port. These only consist in the wing being considerably shorter than 

 the tail in Mimus, and slightly shorter in Galeoscoptes. On comparing 

 specimens of the types of the two genera, of as nearly as possible 

 the same size, I find this difference to be very slight. The bill is, how- 

 ever, rather straighter, and less distinctly notched, in Galeoscoptes ; and 

 the tarsus is shorter relatively to the middle toe, and has the divisions 

 of its anterior face less strongly marked. 



It would have been, in my opinion, preferable to have left the three 

 birds in the genera in which they had been placed; but, as the genus 

 Galeoscoptes has been generally accepted by ornithologists, it will be 

 necessary to separate from it Turdus plumbeus and Turdus rubripes, 

 and to make each of them the type of a genus, the affinity of the three 

 birds being very slight. In order that the differences between these 

 three genera, and also between them and Mimus, can be more readily 

 seized, I give below a brief synopsis of the four genera in a tabular 

 form : — 



PROCEEDINGS B. S. N. H. — VOL. IX. 2i APKIL, 1865. 



