BROWN STARLING. 
57 
of Solitary Thrush, with great minuteness, as a rare British bird, greatly 
resembling the starling, and as nearly allied to it as to the thrush. Dr. 
Latham agreed with him that the specimen described, was “ a trifling 
variety” of the Solitary Thrush. But the synonimes which he gives 
all refer to the blue thrush, {Turdus cy emeus, Gmelin,) the female of 
which, as well as that described by Willughby, * does not at all accord 
with Montagu’s description. 
So far from giving it as a rare bird, Mr. Knapp, writing in Glocester- 
shire, says, “ the Brown Starling or Solitary Thrush ( Turdus solitarius) 
is not an uncommon bird with us. It breeds in the holes and hollows 
of old trees, and, hatching early, forms small flocks in our pastures, 
which are seen before the winter starling, for which bird, by its manners 
and habits, it is generally mistaken. It will occasionally, in very dry 
seasons, enter our gardens for food, which the common stares never 
do; and this year (1826) I had one caught in a trap, unable to resist 
the tempting plunder of a cherry-tree, in conjunction with half the 
thrushes of the neighbourhood.” He adds, I know no description 
that accords so well with our bird as that in Bewick’s Supplement, ex- 
cepting that the legs of those which I have seen are of a red brown 
colour, the bill black, and the lower mandible margined with white ; 
but age and sex occasion many changes in tints and shades. This spe- 
cies possesses none of those beauties of plumage so observable in the 
common starling ; and all those fine prismatic tintings that play and 
wander over the feathers of the latter, are wanting in the former. Its 
whole appearance is like that of a thrush, but it presents even a plainer 
garb ; its browns are more dusky and weather-beaten, and for the beau- 
tiful mottled breast of the throstle, it has a dirty white and a dirtier 
brown. I scarcely know any bird less conspicuous for beauty than the 
Solitary Thrush : it seems like a bleached, way-worn traveller, even in 
its youth.” ^ 
Other naturalists give a very different account of the bird in ques- 
tion. Selby, speaking of the common starling, (^Sturnus vulgaris, Linn.) 
says, “ the young birds, previous to autumn, or the first moult, are of 
a uniform hair-brown colour, lightest upon the throat or upper parts. In 
this state it has been described by Montagu and Bewick, as a distinct 
species, under the name of Solitary Thrush.”^ Dr. Fleming also says 
of the starling, young, of a uniform hair brown, constituting the Passer 
* Ornithology by Ray, page 191. 
^ Journal of a Naturalist, p. 207, ^ Illustr. p. 93. 
