TURDUS CABANISI, Bp. 
CABANIS'S THRUSH. 
Variété du Griverou, Levaill. Ois. d'Afr. iii. p. 8, pl. 100 (1802). 
Merula obscura (nec Linn.), Smith, Rep. S. Afr. Exped., App. p. 45 (1832). 
Turdus obscurus, Smith, Ill. Zool. S. Afr. pl. xxxvi. (1839). 
Turdus cabanisi, Bp. MSS. ; Cab. Mus. Hein. Th. i. p. 3 (1850). 
Turdus smithi, Bp. Consp. i. p. 274 (1850). 
Planesticus cabanisi, Bp. C. R. xxxviii. p. 4 (1854). 
Turdus olivaceus (nec Linn.), Ayres, Ibis, 1869, p. 292. 
Turdus deckeni (nec Cab.), Gurney, Ibis, 1871, p. 267. 
Psophocichla cabanisi, Heine & Reichen. Nomencl. Mus. Hein. p. 5 (1882). 
Peliocichla cabanisi, Cab. J. f. O. 1882, p. 319. 
T. gutture fusco-nigro striato: pedibus flavis: hypochondriis sordidé cinerascenti-brunneis, pectore concoloribus : 
појео cinerascente. 
Ir is not a little surprising that such a distinct species as the present should have been united 
to Turdus olivaceus by myself and other writers, but the series of specimens of 7. cabanisi at my 
disposal was not large when I came to this conclusion in 1871 (Cat. Coll. Afr. B. p. 21). 
The species is easily distinguished from T. olivaceus and its allies by the dull ashy-grey colour 
of the sides of the body and the paler orange-buff colour of the abdomen. The name of T. cabanisi 
was first published by Professor Cabanis from a specimen so named by Bonaparte, and the type is in 
the Heine Collection. Bonaparte himself seems to have forgotten the circumstance, as he also 
named the bird Turdus smithi in his * Conspectus,” published in the same year (1850). 
In 1854, however, he dropped the name of 7. smithi and used only that of 7. cabanisi, by 
which the species has since been known. 
This Thrush has not yet been recorded from the Cape Colony, but Captain Shelley had a specimen 
in his collection received from Mr. Butler, the taxidermist of Cape Town, which was supposed to 
have been got by him in that district. 
Sir Andrew Smith, who first described the species as Merula obscura (a specific name already 
given by Linnzus to another species of Thrush), states that it “inhabits the country towards the 
sources of the Orange River” (Rep. Exped. S. Afr. p. 45). Wahlberg met with it in “ Caffraria,” 
by which is meant the Transvaal of the present day; and the British Museum has now several 
specimens from the neighbourhood of Potchefstroom, where, according to Mr. Ayres, it is common 
all the year round. Chapman also procured a specimen in the Lake N'gami district (Sharpe, Cat. 
Coll. Afr. B. p. 21). Andersson says that he has never seen the species to the west of the 
Lake-country (B. Damara Land, p. 116). 
According to Mr. T. Ayres (Ibis, 1869, p. 292) this Thrush is “ retiring in its habits, frequenting 
thickets and dense hedgerows, and occasionally uttering a low, short chuck, very similar in sound 
to that of the Redwing of Europe.” 
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