392 TAWNY THRUSH. 
TAWNY THRUSH.— TURDUS MUSTELINUS. — Fre. 180. 
Peale’s Museum, No. 5570. 
TURDUS WILSONII. —Bonarante.* 
Turdus Wilsonii, Bonap. Synop. p. 76.—Merula Wilsonii, North. Zool. ii. p. 183. 
Tus species makes its appearance in Pennsylvania from the south 
regularly about the beginning of May, stays with us a week or two, 
and passes on to the north and to the high mountainous districts to 
breed. It has no song, but a sharp chuck. About the 20th of May I 
met with numbers of them in the Great Pine Swamp, near Pocano ; 
and on the 25th of September, in the same year, I shot several of them 
in the neighborhood of Mr. Bartram’s place. I have examined many 
of these birds in spring, and also on their return in fall, and found very 
little difference among them between the male and female. In some 
specimens the wing-coverts were brownish yellow; these appeared to 
be young birds. I have no doubt but they breed in the northern high 
districts of the United States; but I have not yet been able to discover 
their nests. 
The Tawny Thrush is ten inches long, and twelve inches in extent ; 
the whole upper parts are a uniform tawny brown; the. lower parts, 
white ; sides of the breast, and under the wings, slightly tinged with 
ash; chin, white; throat, and upper parts of the breast, cream colored, 
and marked with pointed spots of brown; lores, pale ash, or bluish 
white; cheeks, dusky brown; tail, nearly even at the end, the shafts 
of all, as well as those of the wing-quills, continued a little beyond 
their webs; bill, black above and at the point, below at the base, flesh 
colored; corners of the mouth, yellow; eye, large and dark, sur- 
rounded with a white ring; legs, long, slender, and pale brown, 
_. Though I have given this bird the same name that Mr. Pennant has 
‘®pplied to one of our Thrushes, it must not be considered as the same ; 
the bird which he has denominated the Tawny Thrush being evidently, 
from its size, markings, &c. the Wood Thrush, already described. 
No description of this bird has, to my knowledge, appeared in any 
former publication. 
* The Wood Thrush, the Hermit Thrush, and our present species, have so much 
similarity to each other, that they have been confused together, and their synonyms 
often misquoted by different authors, From these circumstances, the name of 
mustelinus, ee by Wilson to this species, is incorrect ; and Bonaparte has de- 
servedly dedicated it to its first describer, a name which ought now to be used in 
our systems. Another bird has been also lost sight of, in the alliance which exists 
among those, and which will now rank as an addition to the Northern Fauna, the 
Turdus parvus of Edwards, and confounded by Bonaparte with the 7’. solitaria. 
From the observations of Dr. Richardson and Mr. Swainson, m the second volume 
of the Northern Zoology, there can be little doubt of its being distinct from any of 
the others just mentioned, and will be distinguished by the more rufous tinge of the 
upper parts. It was met by the Overland Expedition on the banks of the Sas- 
katchewan, where it is migratory in summer, and appears as nearly allied to the 
others in its habits, as it is in its external appearance. It spreads, no doubt, over 
the other parts of North America, getting more abundant, perhaps, towards the 
south. Mr. Swainson has received it from Georgia, and remarks that the rufous 
tinge of the plumage is much clearer and more int in the her specimens. 
—HKD. 
