GEOCICHLA VARIA (Pall) 
WHITES GROUND-THRUSH, 
Turdus varius, Pallas, Zoogr. Rosso-Asiat. i. p. 449 (1811). 
Turdus aureus, Holandre, Ann. de Verron. 1825, p. 310. 
Turdus squamatus, Boie, Isis, 1835, p. 251. 
Turdus whitei, Eyton, Rarer Brit. B. p. 92 (1836). 
Oreocincla whitei, Gould, P. Z. S. 1837, p. 136. 
Oreocincla varia, Gould, P. Z. S. 1837, p. 136. 
Oreocincla aurea, Bp. Cat. Ucc. Eur. p. 34, no. 186 (1842). 
' Turdus lunulatus (nec Lath.), Blasius, List B. Eur. p. 9 (1862), 
Oreocincla hancii, Swinh. Ibis, 1863, p. 275. 
Turdus dauma (nec Lath.), Pelz. Verh. zool.-bot. Gesellsch. Wien, xxi. p. 703 (1871). 
Geocichla varia, Seebohm, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. v. p. 151 (1881). 
Geocichla hancii, Seebohm, t. c. p. 153 (1881). 
Oreocichla varia, Sharpe, Handb. B. Great Brit. ii. p. 243 (1894). 
G. suprà olivaceo-brunnea, nigro lunulata: pileo notzoque ochrascenti-flavo variegatis : rectricibus 14; remige 
24 quam 54 longiore: ајд 168-180 millim. 
WHITES THRUSH, as it is familiarly called by English naturalists, was discovered in the middle of 
the last century by Johann Georg Gmelin near Krasnoyarsk in Central Siberia, and about the same 
time by Georg Wilhelm Steller in the valley of the Bargusin River, which flows into Lake Baikal. 
The species, however, was not named until the publication of Pallas's great work on the zoology of 
Asiatic Russia, when he bestowed on it the name of Turdus varius (Zoogr. Rosso-Asiat. i. р. 449). 
J. G. Gmelin passed through Krasnoyarsk in January 1735, when White's Thrush must have been 
far away to the south in its winter-quarters; but on his return journey, in 1740, he revisited the 
“city of the red hills ” about the middle of August, when he probably procured the specimens from 
which Pallas took his descriptions. 
Neither Pallas himself, nor his worthy followers in Siberian exploration, Middendorff or Schrenck, 
obtained this species, but more recently it has been recorded from various districts of Siberia. In 
1856 three examples were procured late in April and early in May in the kitchen-garden of a post- 
house at Tarei-nor in the Kerbon Steppe, south of Nerchinsk, not far from the breeding-grounds of 
Pallas's Sand-Grouse (Radde, Reis. im Süden von Ost-Sibirien, ii. p. 281). In the spring of 1873 
examples were again procured in the same district by Dr. Dybowski (Таса. 7. f. О. 1874, p. 330). . 
Fifteen degrees further west Dr. Dybowski found it not uncommon during the last half of May 
in the valley of the Selenga River, on the south-western extremity of Lake Baikal, between Irkutsk 
and Kiachta (Tacz. J. f. O. 1872, p. 436), but he did not find it breeding nor did he observe it on 
the autumn migration. His travelling companion Victor Godlewski states, however, that it was seen 
in September on the autumn migration (Tacz. Faune Orn. Sibérie Orient. p. 282). 
The range of White's Thrush extends eastwards as far as the Pacific. Tt has been procured at 
the end of April near Lake Hanka in the valley of the Ussuri, and a dead specimen was found in 
the Northern Alashan Desert in Southern Mongolia (Prjevalski, in Rowley's Orn. Misc. ii. p. 200). 
YOL: Т, B 
