1847.] or Little Known Species of Birds. 145 



An approach to the same colouration is exhibited by old males of 

 T. rufulus. The female, however, shews no sign of this except on 

 the axillaries, and on more or less of the under- surface of the wing : 

 yet, before obtaining the male, I had perceived the affinity of this 

 species for the Geocichlce ; and it is curious that I procured some 

 eight or ten in the feminine plumage (whether all females, however, 

 I cannot say, for some were only skins), before I succeeded in get- 

 ting a male, which, as I all along suspected, proved to be clad in 

 not quite so homely a garb as his mate. The male is, indeed, rather 

 a handsome Thrush. Length nine inches, by fourteen and a quarter 

 in spread of wing ; closed wing four and a half; tail three and one- 

 eighth ; bill to gape an inch and one-eighth ; tarse the same. Colour 

 of the upper-parts plain olive-brown in both sexes, with ashy beneath 

 the surface of the feathers, tending a little to predominate about the 

 rump ; throat, middle of belly, and lower tail-coverts, white ; the 

 sides of the throat with dusky linear spots, more or less diffused, 

 and some often appearing in the middle ; breast light olive-brown, 

 with a few dusky spots, sometimes small and triangular, sometimes 

 larger and more linear; and the flanks spotless olive-brown in the 

 female, and perhaps in the juvenescent male, but in the old male 

 bright ferruginous, spreading to the white medial line of the abdo- 

 men. Beak dusky, with generally some intermixture of yellow; and 

 legs bright yellowish-brown. As in the Geocichlce, the bill of a fresh 

 specimen of this species is usually much clotted with mud ; and the 

 bird, like them, is mostly seen on the ground, hopping about among 

 the underwood. It is not rare in Lower Bengal during the cold sea- 

 son. Mr. Jerdon has lately obtained it in the south : and it often occurs 

 in collections from the Himalaya. 



Geocichla, Kuhl. 



13. G. cyanotus, (Jardine and Selby), III. Orn., 1st series, pi. 

 XLVI. Common in the Indian peninsula. 



14. G. citrina, (Lath.) : Turdus Macei, Vieillot ; T. lividus, Tickell, 

 J. A. S. II, 577 ; T. rubecula apud Horsfield, P. Z. S. 1839, p. 161. 

 Bengal, Nepal, Assam, Arracan, Central India. A very common spe- 

 cies. The young, received from Darjeeling, has the upper-parts dull 

 olive, with a pale rufescent central streak to each feather ; head and 

 neck dull rufous, the feathers centred brighter, except towards the fore- 



